Project on Constitutional Originalism and CIT

Please join CIT and Hillsdale College this Thursday, April 22, for an engaging discussion on "The Declaration’s Role in Constitutional Interpretation." The event will feature Prof. Matthew Mehan, Prof. Kevin Walsh, and Prof. Bradley Watson.

About the event: 2026 marks the semi-quincentennial of the Declaration of Independence. From the Founding to the time of Lincoln to the present, American jurists have debated the Declaration’s proper role in constitutional interpretation.

Register and learn more about our distinguished speakers: https://cit.catholic.edu/events/the-declarations-role-in-constitutional-interpretation/

We are just one week away from our landmark event, “Endowed by Their Creator: Catholicism, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Experiment at 250.”

The symposium will gather leading scholars and public intellectuals to discuss the relationship between the Catholic intellectual tradition and the principles of the Declaration of Independence, as well as to foster reflection on how both Catholicism and the Declaration continue to influence and inform America's experiment in constitutional self-government 250 years after 1776.

We are proud to partner with Notre Dame’s Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government and The Carroll Forum for Citizenship and Public Life to bring you this Conference!

Register here: https://cit.catholic.edu/events/catholicism-and-the-250th-anniversary-of-the-declaration-conference/

A big thank you to everyone who joined us last week for The Return of General Law at the American Enterprise Institute. This important conversation explored the resurgence of scholarly interest in general law. The panel discussed the increasingly prominent role that general law has come to play in originalist analysis of the Privileges or Immunities Clause, personal jurisdiction, sovereign immunity, the Second Amendment, and other areas of constitutional jurisprudence.

The discussion featured Prof. A.J. Bellia (Notre Dame Law School), Prof. Jud Campbell (Stanford Law School), and CIT Director J. Joel Alicea.

Join CIT tomorrow, March 4, for a discussion on the resurgence of scholarly interest in general law and the increasingly prominent role that general law has come to play in originalist analysis of the Privileges or Immunities Clause, personal jurisdiction, sovereign immunity, the Second Amendment, and other areas of constitutional jurisprudence.

The panel features Prof. A.J. Bellia, Prof. Jud Campbell, and CIT Director, Prof. J. Joel Alicea.

This event is co-sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute.

Please join CIT and IHE tomorrow, February 25 for a special event on equity in American law. The event will feature Prof. Aditya Bamzai, Prof. Renée Lettow Lerner, and CIT fellow Prof. Derek Webb.

About the event: In recent years, there has been renewed scholarly interest in how the equitable power of courts was understood at the Founding and throughout the nineteenth century. Some of this interest has focused on Supreme Court cases in which the limits on the equitable powers of federal courts were traced back to the Founding, while other scholars have focused on how equity and the natural-law tradition relate to each other in constitutional theory.

Register and learn more about our distinguished speakers: https://cit.catholic.edu/events/equity-in-american-law-2/

Last week, CIT and The Institute for Human Ecology hosted a panel discussion on the priesthood’s role in post-Norman-Conquest factfinding procedures like compurgation, the ordeals, and trial by battle, as well as how the priesthood’s subsequent withdrawal from those roles (under the Fourth Lateran Council) served to shape the development of the jury and modern Anglo-American trial procedure more generally.

The program featured John Langbein, Thomas Sweeney, and CIT's own William M. M. Kamin.

👏🏻 CIT is delighted to celebrate the nomination of former Aquinas Fellow Katie Lane to serve as a federal judge for the District of Montana.

Prior to her nomination, Ms. Lane served as senior legal counsel at the Republican National Committee. She previously was an associate at Consovoy McCarthy PLLC in Arlington, Virginia. From 2021 to 2023, she served as Deputy Solicitor General in the Office of the Montana Attorney General. Before that, she served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and for Judge Thomas A. Varlan of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. Ms. Lane graduated magna cm laude from Antonin Scalia Law School, where she also served as Editor-in-Chief for the George Mason Law Review. She earned her undergraduate degree magna cm laude from Furman University.

Congratulations, Ms. Lane!

A decade has passed since the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, yet his influence on American law is greater now than it has ever been.

To honor this enduring legacy, last week, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) hosted a two-day symposium, "Justice Antonin Scalia’s Legacy: 10 Years Later," led by Yuval Levin and Adam J. White and cosponsored by the Ethics & Public Policy Center. The event brought together a distinguished group of scholars, judges, and advocates to reflect on how Justice Scalia reshaped the Supreme Court and the broader legal landscape, with CIT Director J. Joel Alicea among the distinguished speakers.

Watch Prof. Alicea's remarks below, at approximately 1:45:

Justice Antonin Scalia’s Legacy: 10 Years Later Since his death in February 2016, Justice Antonin Scalia’s jurisprudential legacy has flourished beyond measure. His incisive writings on judicial power, the...

On January 29, CIT and the American Enterprise Institute cohosted a special two-panel event on the original meaning of the First Amendment’s free speech guarantees, with support from the MacArthur Foundation. The program featured Jud Campbell, Haley Proctor, Stephen E. Sachs, Lawrence Lessig, Michael T. Morley, Bradley A. Smith, and was led by CIT Director J. Joel Alicea.

Watch the full event:
https://loom.ly/xSU43qk

📸 Photo Credit: Aaron Clamage Photography © American Enterprise Institute.

Join CIT today at 12:30PM for a panel discussion on the priesthood’s role in post-Norman-Conquest factfinding procedures like compurgation, the ordeals, and trial by battle, as well as how the priesthood’s subsequent withdrawal from those roles (under the Fourth Lateran Council) served to shape the development of the jury and modern Anglo-American trial procedure more generally.

Speakers include John Langbein, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Legal History at Yale Law School, and Thomas McSweeney, Professor of Law at William & Mary Law School. The discussion will be moderated by CIT’s own William M. M. Kamin.

This event is co-sponsored by The Institute for Human Ecology.

Register to attend or join the livestream: https://cit.catholic.edu/events/the-priesthood-in-the-evolution-of-anglo-american-criminal-procedure/