Public Law and Legal Theory Commons^™

Constitutional Scepticism, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Interpretive constitutional debate over the last few decades has centered on two apparently linked questions: whether the Constitution can be given a determinate meaning, and whether the institution of judicial review can be justified within the basic assumptions of liberalism. Two groups of scholars have generated answers to these questions. The "constitutional faithful" argue that meaning can indeed be determinately affixed to constitutional clauses, by reference to the plain meaning of the document, the original intent of the drafters, evolving political and moral norms of the community, or the best political or moral philosophical theory available and that, because of …

Comparative Constitutional Fundamentals, Richard Kay

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Civil Service Appointments And Promotions

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comptroller And Attorney-General

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Progressive And Conservative Constitutionalism, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

American constitutional law in general, and fourteenth amendment jurisprudence in particular, is in a state of profound transformation. The "liberal-legalist" and purportedly politically neutral understanding of constitutional guarantees that dominated constitutional law and theory during the fifties, sixties, and seventies, is waning, both in the courts and in the academy. What is beginning to replace liberal legalism in the academy, and what has clearly replaced it on the Supreme Court, is a very different conception - a new paradigm - of the role of constitutionalism, constitutional adjudication, and constitutional guarantees in a democratic state. Unlike the liberal-legal paradigm it is …

Book Review, Richard B. Collins

Publications

No abstract provided.

Original Intentions, Standard Meanings And The Legal Character Of The Constitution, Richard Kay

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Are Constitutional Cases Political?, Brian Slattery

Articles & Book Chapters

To argue that constitutional adjudication is political does not carry us very far unless we go on to specify what the pursuit of politics entails, the goals it seeks to attain, and the basic principles informing its practice. The word political has no clearly defined meaning in modern usage. Rather, it has the chameleon-like capacity to change colours so as to blend with a variety of different conceptual backgrounds. Of course, if we adopt an Aristotelian notion of politics as the pursuit of the common good of a community and the individual goods of its members, we can agree that …

Law, Literature, And The Celebration Of Authority, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Richard Posner's new book, Law and Literature: A Misunderstood Relation, is a defense of “liberal legalism” against a group of modern critics who have only one thing in common: their use of either particular pieces of literature or literary theory to mount legal critiques. Perhaps for that reason, it is very hard to discern a unified thesis within Posner's book regarding the relationship between law and literature. In part, Posner is complaining about a pollution of literature by its use and abuse in political and legal argument; thus, the “misunderstood relation” to which the title refers. At times, Posner suggests …

Takings, Narratives, And Power, Gregory S. Alexander

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

"The Regulatory Takings Problem" is the title given to a story, or narrative, that has become prominent in the literature on just compensation issues. The story is one of power and fear. It is about a perceived imbalance of power between the two groups of actors involved in the process of public land-use regulation--private landowners and government regulators. It depicts scenarios of past or threatened abuse of power by local land-use regulators, and it looks to the takings clause generally and regulatory takings doctrine specifically as crucial corrective devices, essential to set the power imbalance aright. The dominant narrative describes …

Enforcement Provisions Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1866: A Legislative History In Light Of Runyon V. Mccrary, The Review Essay And Comments: Reconstructing Reconstruction, Robert J. Kaczorowski

Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this Comment is to examine the history of the enactment and early enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 from the perspective of the remedies Congress sought to provide to meet the problems that necessitated the legislation. Its main foci are the statute's enforcement provisions and their early implementation, an aspect of the history of the statute that has not been fully considered in relation to section one, the provision that has received the most scholarly attention. The occasion of this study is the Supreme Court's reconsideration of Runyon v. McCrary' in Patterson v. McLean Credit …

The Authoritarian Impulse In Constitutional Law, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Should there be greater participation by legislators and citizens in constitutional debate, theory, and decision-making? An increasing number of legal theorists from otherwise divergent perspectives have recently argued against what Paul Brest calls the "principle of judicial exclusivity" in our constitutional processes. These theorists contend that because issues of public morality in our culture either are, or tend to become, constitutional issues, all political actors, and most notably legislators and citizens, should consider the constitutional implications of the moral issues of the day. Because constitutional questions are essentially moral questions about how active and responsible citizens should constitute themselves, we …

Communities, Texts, And Law: Reflections On The Law And Literature Movement, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

How do we form communities? How might we form better ones? What is the role of law in that process? In a recent series of books and articles, James Boyd White, arguably the modern law and literature movement's founder, has put forward distinctively literary answers to these questions. Perhaps because of the fluidity of the humanities, White's account of the nature of community is not nearly as axiomatic to the law and literature movement as is Posner's depiction of the "individual" to legal economists. Nevertheless, White's conception is increasingly representative of the literary-legalist's world view. Furthermore, with the exception of …

Book Review. Constitutional Federalism In A Nutshell, 2nd Ed. By David E. Engdahl, Daniel O. Conkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Clergy-Penitent Privilege And The Child Abuse Reporting Statute: Is The Secret Sacred, 19 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1031 (1986), Kathryn Keegan

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Anti-Formalism In Recent Constitutional Theory, Mark V. Tushnet

Michigan Law Review

The focus in constitutional theory on judicial review rests on a much deeper political theory than the phrase "countermajoritarian difficulty" standing alone suggests. Majoritarian or democratic decision making is itself a solution to a set of problems that arise from a particular view of human nature and political action. In this Article, I identify, explicate, and criticize some recent developments in constitutional theory which are of interest to the extent that they reject that view of human nature and politics. I take as my focus important articles by Robert Burt, Robert Cover, Owen Fiss, Frank Michelman, and Cass Sunstein. I …

Book Review Of Passion: An Essay On Personality , Richard F. Devlin Frsc

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Passion is a cogently structured, compel Jingly argued and seductively enthralling masterpiece which, in years to come, will undoubtedly stand out as an inspirational source for many who seek social transformation. Unger's style, in this essay at least, is lucid and inviting. Substantively, Passion demonstrates not only the depth of his penetrating intellect but also his command of an array of' disciplines. Unger's polymathy is all the more impressive when we remember that ours is an era in which idiosyncratic specialization is the norm.

International Law As Law In The United States, Louis Henkin

Michigan Law Review

"International law is part of our law." Justice Gray's much-quoted pronouncement in The Paquete Habana was neither new nor controversial when made in 1900, since he was merely restating what had been established principle for the fathers of American jurisprudence and for their British legal ancestors. And Gray's dictum remains unquestioned today. But, after more than two hundred years in our jurisprudence, the import of that principle is still uncertain and disputed. How did, and how does, international law become part of our law? What does it mean that international law is a part of our law? What is the …

The Fee Awards Act Of 1976: Examining The Foundation For Legislative Reform Of Attorney's Fees Shifting, 18 J. Marshall L. Rev. 77 (1984), Randall R. Rader

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legislative Formality, Administrative Rationality, Harold H. Bruff

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Constitutional Guarantee Of Aboriginal And Treaty Rights, Brian Slattery

Articles & Book Chapters

This paper proposes a workable framework for the application of the constitutional provisions dealing with Aboriginal and treaty rights in Canada.

Constitutional Interpretation, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

"[We] must never forget," Chief Justice Marshall admonished us in a statement pregnant with more than one meaning, "that it is a constitution we are expounding."' Marshall meant that the Constitution should be read as a document "intended to endure for ages.to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs."'2 But he meant also that the construction placed upon the document must have regard for its "great outlines" and "important objects."'3 Limits are implied by the very nature of the task. There is not the same freedom in construing the Constitution as in constructing a …

The Public Trust Doctrine In Public Land Law, Charles F. Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Recent Publications, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Bakke, DeFunis, and Minority Admissions: The Quest for Equal Opportunity

By Allan P. Sindler.

Sindler describes the admissions programs at the Universities of Washington and California-Davis, and the respective experiences of Marco DeFunis and Allan Bakke that preceded their litigation. Then, documenting the disparity in academic qualifications between accepted minorities and rejected nonminorities, Sindler addresses the broad issue before the courts. Is the reservation of academic "places" for minorities an inherently two-track system, which operates as an illegal quota to exclude "better-qualified" applicants; or may a school utilize race as a basis for selection in order to fulfill other commitments …

Kewanee Oil Co. V. Bicron Corp., Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

Montgomery & Smithies: Public Policy, Jameson W. Doig

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Public Policy Volume XIV. Edited by John D. Montgomery and Arthur Smithies

Privacy In Connecticut, Arthur E. Sutherland

Michigan Law Review

Occasionally a judgment of our Supreme Court, delivered in a superficially petty case, suddenly before our startled eyes displays fundamentals of our constitutional theory. Thus, in Griswold v. Connecticut, holding unconstitutional an 1879 Connecticut statute forbidding all persons to use contraceptive devices, the Court found it necessary to discover a "right of privacy" latent in the Bill of Rights and incorporated into the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. The outcome of the case is satisfying; all nine Justices joined in saying, in one way or another, that Connecticut's statute was nonsense. I am happy to see this …

Nine Justices In Search Of A Doctrine, Thomas I. Emerson

Michigan Law Review

To the ordinary layman, Griswold v. Connecticut seemed easy. But to the lawyer it was somewhat more difficult. The lawyer's problem with the case was that the issues did not readily fit into any existing legal pigeonhole. Actually, there were five possibilities. The case could have been dealt with under the equal protection clause, the first amendment, substantive due process, the right of privacy, or, in extremis, the ninth amendment. In order to strike down the statute under any of these doctrines, however, the Court would be forced to enter uncharted waters. Whatever course the Court took, its action …

The Griswold Penumbra: Constitutional Charter For An Expanded Law Of Privacy?, Robert G. Dixon Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The comments that follow are divided into a brief review, for purposes of perspective, of the elusive nature of "privacy" as developed in American law to date, and an attempted rigorous analysis of the privacy aspects of Griswold. A final section suggests that effectuation of the new constitutional right of marital privacy necessarily or derivatively implies a corollary right of access to birth control information and devices-a right which should have been more clearly articulated by the Court.

Penumbras, Peripheries, Emanations, Things Fundamental And Things Forgotten: The Griswold Case, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

The varying theories followed in the several opinions in the Griswold case can be fully understood and appreciated only in the context of the tortuous but fascinating history of the judicial interpretation of the fourteenth amendment.