We the People

In this episode, Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, talks with C-SPAN’s Peter Slen about the life and career of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. The conversation is part of C-SPAN’s Books That Shaped America series, which explores key works from American history that have had a major impact on society. This discussion features Holmes’ The Common Law, written in...

In this episode, Robert Post, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School, delves into his newly released and highly anticipated volumes from the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court, The Taft Court: Making Law for a Divided Nation, 1921–1930. Post explores the history of the Taft Court and the contrasting constitutional approaches among its justices, including Chief Justice...

On Tuesday, December 4, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Moore v. United States. The case concerns a challenge to the “mandatory repatriation tax,” and asks whether the Constitution allows Congress to tax American shareholders for the unrealized earnings of a foreign corporation. In this episode, Akhil Amar of Yale Law School and Anastasia Boden of the Cato Institute join Jeffrey Rosen to...

On Wednesday, November 29, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy. The case involves three constitutional challenges to the agency, involving the right to a jury trial; the nondelegation doctrine; and the scope of executive power. In this episode, Noah Rosenblum, assistant professor of law at NYU, and Ilan Wurman, assistant professor at the Sandra D...

Last week the Supreme Court announced that it adopted a formal code of ethics, endorsed by all nine Justices. In this episode, Professor Daniel Epps of Washington University School of Law and Professor Stephen Vladeck of the University of Texas School of Law join Jeffrey Rosen to break down the Supreme Court ethics code and explore questions about how it will be applied and enforced.  Resources: ...

Historians Ned Blackhawk and Brenda Child join for a conversation on Blackhawk’s national bestseller, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, which just won the National Book Award. They explore five centuries of U.S. history to shed light on the central role Indigenous peoples have played in shaping our nation’s narrative. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of t...

This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a Second Amendment case, United States v. Rahimi. This case asks whether the federal government can ban guns for people subject to domestic-violence restraining orders. In this episode, we break down the arguments in the case and explore the future of the Second Amendment. Clark Neily of the Cato Institute and Pepperdine Law Professor Jacob Char...

This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases about social media and the First Amendment. The cases involve questions surrounding when and whether a public official’s social media activity constitutes state action subject to First Amendment constraints—and if so, whether they can block individuals from their social media pages. In this episode, David Cole of the ACLU and Professor...

This week we are sharing an episode from our companion podcast, Live at the National Constitution Center. In this episode, prize-winning historians Kate Masur, author of Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction, and Dylan Penningroth, author of the new book Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights, explore the central...

This week we are sharing an episode from our companion podcast, Live at the National Constitution Center. In this episode, these three leading experts on American presidents—Sidney Milkis and Barbara Perry of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, and Stephen Knott of Ashland University—warn about the increasingly demagogic nature of the presidency. Their discussion traces a historical journe...

In its most recent round of redistricting, the South Carolina legislature changed the demographic of a congressional district, resulting in a number of Black voters being moved to a different district. Challengers argued that the state violated the 14th Amendment by unlawfully racially gerrymandering the district; while lawmakers countered that political, not racial, factors motivated the redistri...

On Tuesday, October 3, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association of America. Industry groups representing payday lenders brought a challenge arguing that the CFPB funding structure is unconstitutional under the Appropriations Clause. The outcome of the case could have big effects not just on the future of the CFPB its...

On Monday, October 2, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing cases for the 2023-24 term. It is likely to be yet another landmark term for the Court, with cases on the docket about the scope of the right to bear arms; whether Chevron will be overturned; the future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; the First Amendment and social media; and more. Adam Liptak of The New York Times...

How did America’s founders view religious liberty? What does it mean today? And to what does the Constitution require religious exemptions from generally applicable laws? Marci Hamilton, author of God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty, and Michael McConnell, co-author of Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience,...

The National Constitution Center, in partnership with a coalition of leading free speech organizations, convened a National First Amendment Summit on September 13, 2023, to discuss the increasing threats to freedom of expression and to celebrate the opening of the Center’s new First Amendment gallery. The third panel of the event, “The First Amendment on Campus and Online,” examined the increasing...

This summer, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation that would attempt to set ethics rules for the U.S. Supreme Court and a process to enforce them, including rules for transparency around recusals, gifts, and conflicts of interest. The bill, which still requires full Senate approval, is the latest in a series of proposals and attempts to reform or improve the Supreme Court in recent...

Two constitutional law scholars—Will Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen—recently published an in-depth article arguing that President Donald Trump is disqualified for running for reelection under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. In this episode, law professors Mark Graber and Michael McConnell join host Jeffrey Rosen to discuss what Section 3 means and how it applies to disqualification from office;...

Described in The Federalist as “the celebrated Montesquieu,” Charles de Montesquieu was cited more often than any other author from 1760-1800. In what ways did his writings and ideas help shape the U.S. Constitution and the structure of American government? William B. Allen of Michigan State University, Thomas Pangle of the University of Texas at Austin, Dennis Rasmussen of Syracuse University, an...

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, discuss the concepts of civic virtue and citizenship in democratic societies. Jeffre...

Earlier this month, President Trump was indicted in federal court in Washington, D.C. for conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential elections. Judge J. Michael Luttig joins Jeffrey Rosen for a conversation about the constitutional and historical questions raised by the indictment. Resources:  Jeffrey Rosen, “The Founders Anticipated the Threat of Trump,” Wall Street Journal (Aug. 4, 2023)  “For...

In this episode, a panel of libertarian and conservative scholars—J. Joel Alicea of the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, Anastasia Boden of the Cato Institute, and Sherif Girgis of Notre Dame Law School—explore the different strands of originalism as a constitutional methodology. They also explore the Roberts Court’s application of originalism in recent cases, and how origina...

David Waldstreicher’s The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence offers the fullest account to date of Wheatley’s life and works. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, Wheatley became a noted poet at a young age. She is considered the first African American author to publish a book of poetry and had a lasting influence on the Fo...

This past term, the Supreme Court handed down two major decisions about Native American law. In Arizona v. Navajo Nation, the Court ruled 5-4 that a treaty did not require the U.S. Government to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Navajo Nation; and in Haaland v. Brackeen, the Court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). In this episode, Native American law experts Professor Marcia...

In a 6-3 ruling at the end of the 2022-23 term, the Supreme Court handed down a major First Amendment decision about the intersection of free expression rights and anti-discrimination laws in 303 Creative v. Elenis. The Court held that Colorado could not force a website designer to design a site and create expressive designs that she disagreed with, which included creating a website for same-sex m...

In a special Independence Day episode, scholars Akhil Amar of Yale Law School and Peter Onuf of the University of Virginia join host Jeffrey Rosen for a discussion on the historical legacy of founding father Thomas Jefferson, America’s third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence. In a National Constitution Center event a few months ago, Professor Amar announced his inte...