Live at the National Constitution Center

With the Supreme Court weighing two cases involving Harvard and the University of North Carolina that could end affirmative action in higher education, scholars William B. Allen of Michigan State University and Hasan Kwame Jeffries of The Ohio State University discuss its future. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates. Additional Resources William B. Allen, “End of Affirmative Action 2023”   William B. Allen, Drew S. Days III, Benjamin L. Hooks, and William Bradford Reynolds, “Is Affirmative Action Constitutional?” AEI Journal on Government and Society   Jonathan Hicks, “Proponents Worry About Supreme Court Review of Affirmative Action,” BET   “Why Conservatives want the Supreme Court to take up Affirmative Action Case,” Yahoo!News   National Constitution Center, “14th Amendment: Citizenship Rights, Equal Protection, Apportionment, Civil War Debt,” Interactive Constitution   National Constitution Center, “Affirmative Action and the 14th Amendment,” Live at the National Constitution   National Constitution Center, “Affirmative Action and the 14th Amendment – Part 1,” We the People podcast   National Constitution Center, “Affirmative Action and the 14th Amendment – Part 2,” We the People podcast   Fisher v. University of Texas (2013)   Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)   Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)   Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971) Oral Argument Trasnscript in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College   Oral Argument Trasnscript in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina   Slaughter-House Cases (1873) National Constitution Center, "Civil Rights Act of 1866," Founders' Library: Civil War and Reconstruction National Constitution Center, "Civil Rights Act of 1875," Founders' Library: Civil War and Reconstruction Shelby County v. Holder (2013)  Stay Connected and Learn MoreContinue the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, author of Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality, and Elizabeth Cobbs, author of Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyoncé explore key influential women throughout history and how these women inspired constitutional change. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.This program is made possible through the generous support of the McNulty Foundation in partnership with the Anne Welsh McNulty Institute for Women's Leadership at Villanova University.Additional Resources Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality Tomiko Brown-Nagin, “Identity Matters: The Case of Judge Constance Baker Motley,” Columbia Law Review Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement Elizabeth Cobbs, Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abagail Adams to Beyoncé Q&A, “Elizabeth Cobbs”, C-SPAN Muller v. Oregon (1908) National Constitution Center, "The Legality of Abortion Pills," We the People podcast Brandon Burnette, "Comstock Act of 1873 (1873)," First Amendment Encyclopedia   Stay Connected and Learn MoreContinue the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

The U.S. Supreme Court decides some of the most challenging and important constitutional and statutory issues facing America through its interpretive methodologies. In this episode, we explore the various approaches to constitutional interpretation and key doctrines—including originalism, textualism, and the major questions doctrine—through the lens of recent Supreme Court cases with Solicitors General Ben Flowers of Ohio and Caroline Van Zile of Washington, D.C. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates. This program is presented in partnership with the Center for Excellence in Governance at the National Association of Attorneys General.Additional Resources “The Major Questions Doctrine,” Congressional Research Service Steven Calabresi, “On Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation,” Constitution Daily blog “Textualism,” Cornell Law School: Legal Information Institute Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services (2021) Biden v. Nebraska Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022 Missouri v. Biden National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (2022 New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen (2022) West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022)  Stay Connected and Learn MoreContinue the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

In this episode we explore the concepts of civic virtue and citizenship in democratic societies. Joining the conversation are: Christopher Beem, author of The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy; Richard Haass, author of The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens; and Lorraine Pangle, author of Reason and Character: The Moral Foundations of Aristotelian Political Philosophy. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.  This program is made possible through the generous support of Citizen Travelers, the nonpartisan civic engagement initiative of Travelers.Additional Resources Richard Haass, The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens Christopher Beem, The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy Christopher Sheilds, "Aristotle," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Robert Pasnau, "Thomas Aquinas," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Lorraine Pangle, Reason and Character: The Moral Foundations of Aristotelian Political Philosophy Lorraine and Thomas Pangle, The Learning of Liberty: The Educational Ideas of the American Founders Lorraine Pangle, The Political Philosophy of Benjamin Franklin Scotty Hendricks, "Ben Franklin's 13 Guidelines for Living a Good Life," Big Think Xenophon, Memorabilia Eve Browning, "Xenophon," Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Federalist 10 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics George Washington, First Annual Message to Congress (1790) Adam Harris, "George Washington's Broken Dream of a National University," The Atlantic National Constitution Center, "Lessons from Tocqueville in America," Live at the National Constitution Center Stay Connected and Learn MoreContinue the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

The National Constitution Center and the National Association of Attorneys General host a bipartisan conversation with Dan Schweitzer, director and chief counsel of the National Association of Attorneys General Center for Supreme Court Advocacy; Lindsay See, solicitor general of West Virginia; and Barbara Underwood, solicitor general of New York, exploring the history of the office of the solicitor general, the role of state solicitors in litigating cases before the Supreme Court, and some of the landmark cases they have litigated. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.  This program is presented in partnership with the Center for Excellence in Governance at the National Association of Attorneys General.Additional Resources Lydia Wheeler,State Solicitors General to Have Big Week at US Supreme Court, Bloomberg Law New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen (2022) New York v. New Jersey West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022) National Constitution Center, "Domestic Violence Laws and Gun Rights," We the People podcast Trump v. New York (2020) Department of Commerice v. New York (2019) Dawson v. Steager (2018)  Stay Connected and Learn MoreContinue the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

The National Constitution Center and the Center for Constitutional Design at Arizona State University present a comparative discussion of how democracies amend their constitutions, at home and around the world. A panel of distinguished scholars, including Wilfred Codrington of Brooklyn Law School, Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and Rosalind Dixon of the University of New South Wales, survey the constitutional amendment process around the world to cast light on our debates in the U.S. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates. This program is presented in partnership with the Center for Constitutional Design at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law. Additional Resources Jeffrey Sutton, Who Decides: States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation National Constitution Center, Interactive Constitution, Article V Rosalind Dixon and David Landau, "Tiered Constitutional Design," George Washington Law Review Donald Lutz, "Toward a Theory of Constitutional Amendment," The American Political Science Review John Dinan, The American State Constitutional Tradition John Kowal and Wilfred Codrington, The People's Constitution: 200 Years, 27 Amendments, and the Promise of a More Perfect Union The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company (1895) Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022) Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (1949) Florida Constitution Revision Commission National Constitution Center, "The Proposed Amendments," Constitution Drafting Project Switzerland's Constitution of 1999 with Amendments through 2014 Rosalind Dixon and Felix Uhlmann, "The Swiss Constitution and a weak-form unconstitutional amendment doctrine?" International Journal of Constitutional Law  Stay Connected and Learn MoreContinue the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America has been called by Harvey Mansfield the “best book ever written on democracy and the best book ever written on America." What can a 200-year-old book teach us about democracy in America today?Scholars—Jeremy Jennings, author of Travels with Tocqueville Beyond America; Olivier Zunz, author of The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville; and Catherine Zuckert of the University of Notre Dame—discuss Tocqueville’s masterpiece and its lessons for modern Americans with Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center. This conversation was streamed live on March 6, 2023.Additional Resources Jeremy Jennings, Travels with Tocqueville Beyond America Olivier Zunz, The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville Catherine Zuckert, “The Saving Minimum? Tocqueville on the Role of Religion in America—Then and Now,” American Political Thought Michael Oakeshott, “The Masses in Representative Democracy”  Stay Connected and Learn MoreContinue the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

Historians Harold Holzer, author of several books on President Abraham Lincoln, including Lincoln: How Abraham Lincoln Ended Slavery in America; and Manisha Sinha, author of The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition; join Edward Larson for a conversation on Larson’s new book, American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795, to explore the paradox of liberty and slavery in Revolutionary America through the Civil War era. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.   This program is made possible through the generous support of Citizens and presented in partnership with the Civil War Museum of Philadelphia. ParticipantsHarold Holzer is the Jonathan F. Fanton Director of The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. He is one of the country's leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era, and served six years as chairman of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation, and the previous 10 years as co-chair of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of 55 books and his latest book is The Presidents vs. the Press: The Endless Battle Between The White House and the Media—From the Founding Fathers to Fake News.Edward Larson is University Professor of History and Hugh and Hazel Darling Chair in Law at Pepperdine University. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in History and numerous other awards for writing and teaching, he is the author or co-author of 18 books and over 100 published articles. His most recent book is American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795.Manisha Sinha is the James L. and Shirley A. Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut. A leading authority on the history of slavery and abolition and the Civil War and Reconstruction, she is the author of The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina and the award-winning book, The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition. She has a forthcoming book entitled The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: A Long History of Reconstruction, 1860-1900.Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.Stay Connected and Learn MoreContinue the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

As the U.S. Supreme Court considers a key case on affirmative action, the National Constitution Center and the University of Pennsylvania’s Journal of Constitutional Law convene experts to discuss this important subject as part of the Journal’s annual law symposium. Join Jin Hee Lee of the Legal Defense Fund and Ilan Wurman of Arizona State University for a conversation addressing how the history and original meaning of the 14th Amendment informs the debate about whether the Constitution is colorblind. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.  This program is presented in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law as part of their symposium on "The History, Development, and Future of the 14th Amendment."Stay Connected and Learn MoreContinue the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

This month, we hosted a conversation about FDR and the Transformation of the Supreme Court. Legal historian Laura Kalman, author of FDR’s Gambit: The Court Packing Fight and the Rise of Legal Liberalism; Ken Kersch, professor of political science at Boston College and author of Conservatives and the Constitution; and Jeff Shesol, author of Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court, joined Jeffrey Rosen to discuss Franklin D. Roosevelt’s constitutional legacy, the court packing fight, and how his Supreme Court appointees transformed America.Stay Connected and Learn MoreContinue the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.Please subscribe to Live at the National Constitution Center and our companion podcast We the People on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.