For Our Next Class Wednesday Nov. 8

On Wednesday Nov. 8 we will discuss Gonzales v. Carhart, Whole Women's Health, Lawrence & Glucksberg.

We will revisit Obergefell briefly on Thursday and then begin our discussion of the Equal Protection Clause.

Prof. Amar's Lecture--Friday Oct. 20

This Friday (October 20) Professor Akhil Amar from Yale Law School will be delivering the Lane Lecture at noon in the auditorium.  Professor Amar, who is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, is one of the leading constitutional scholars in the country.   

His talk is entitled “The Constitution Today.”  Here is a brief summary:

For the first time in our lifetime—and for one of the few times in modern history—all four major federal institutions of power were in play in the last election.   When the two national conventions met in 2016, Democrats had a real chance to win control of the House, Senate, Presidency, and Supreme Court.  Instead, the Republicans swept the field and now control all four institutions, even though Donald Trump lost the (legally irrelevant) national popular presidential vote.  In this Lane Lecture, based in part on his recently released book, The Constitution Today, Yale Law Professor Akhil Reed Amar will discuss the constitutional significance of all this and will touch upon a wide range of modern cases and controversies—from gun control to gay rights, from the electoral college to campaign finance to filibuster reform. Come prepared to ask any question you like about America’s constitutional system—past, present, and future.

  

I would like you all to attend this Lecture. Prof. Amar is a giant in the field, and you will learn a lot.

SDP and Temptation

Consider this gem from Judge Bork:

In law, the moment of temptation is the moment of choice, when a judge realizes that in the case before him his strongly held views of justice, his political and moral imperative, is not embodied in a statute or in any provision of the Constitution. He must then choose between his version of justice and abiding by the American form of government. Yet the desire to do justice, whose nature seems to him obvious, is compelling, while the concept of constitutional process is abstract, rather arid, and the abstinence it counsels unsatisfying. To give in to temptation, this one time, solves an urgent human problem, and a faint crack appears in the American foundation. A judge has begun to rule where a legislator should.

How does it apply to the Substantive Due Process cases we are reading this week?