The Heritage Foundation is honored to announce its inaugural Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecture featuring Professor Josh Blackman from South Texas College of Law Houston.

This annual lecture seeks to honor former Attorney General Ed Meese’s legacy of advancing an understanding and jurisprudence of originalism. When the Framers wrote the Constitution, “Their intention was to write a document not just for their times but for posterity,” Meese said in a 1985 speech to the D.C. Chapter of the Federalist Society Lawyers Division. Meese reiterated the theme of Original Intention in several speeches, warning of the danger of “seeing the Constitution as an empty vessel into which each generation may pour its passion and prejudice.” The Great Debate that he launched over three decades ago placed the idea of judicial originalism at the center of American jurisprudence and fundamentally altered the constitutional landscape of this nation.

Today, originalism is no longer a novel concept; instead, it is now widely embraced in legal circles, including academia and the judiciary. Building on the work of Ed Meese, this lecture aims to continue the conversation he started and examine new trends and themes in originalist thought today. Please join us for our inaugural lecture with Professor Josh Blackman delivering a speech entitled Originalism and Stare Decisis in the Lower Courts.

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