Project on Constitutional Originalism and CIT

NEW CIT Short 👇📽️

🧐 How many times is "law of nature" cited in American judicial opinions from 1865 to 1900?

R.H. Helmholz reveals the staggering number in this CIT Short from our 2024 event "The History of Natural Law in American Law" - watch now:
https://loom.ly/p4X1rGQ

R. H. Helmholz reveals staggering statistic on law of nature From our 2024 event "The History of Natural Law in American Law" featuring:Jud Campbell, Professor of Law, Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar, Stanford Law Sch...

We are delighted to share that on April 9, CIT’s Co-Director J. Joel Alicea had the honor of delivering the Herbert W. Vaughan Memorial Lecture at Harvard Law School.

This endowed lecture series promotes and advances the core principles and doctrines of American constitutionalism. Previous Vaughan lectures have featured U.S. Supreme Court justices, such as Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas; former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement; and Stanford Law professor Michael W. McConnell.

Alicea’s former professor, Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith, introduced Alicea as the youngest Vaughan lecturer ever, “which is a testament to the extraordinary importance of his work to date.”

Watch the video of Prof. Alicea’s lecture, entitled “The Natural Law Moment in Constitutional Theory” here:
https://loom.ly/A2VtE34

2024 Vaughan Lecture: Joel Alicea, "The Natural Law Moment in Constitutional Theory" On April 9, Harvard Law School welcomed Joel Alicea ’13, co-director of the Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, an...

"Rethinking the Great Writ" is one week from today!

We are thrilled to introduce you to another distinguished speaker of this April 17th event: CIT Fellow William M. M. Kamin.

Professor William M. M. Kamin teaches civil procedure, federal courts, criminal law, and immigration law. His scholarship focuses on how the history of the writ of habeas corpus – as developed in early-modern England by the Court of King’s Bench – bears on contemporary American habeas jurisprudence. He also writes in the areas of federal jurisdiction, land-use regulation, and law and religion. Prior to joining the faculty at Catholic Law, Professor Kamin served as a law clerk to Judge Richard J. Sullivan of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and Amherst College.

Register here 👇
https://loom.ly/9GmgqeA

Now on CIT's YouTube: "The History of Natural Law in American Law" featuring:
🎤Jud Campbell, Professor of Law, Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar, Stanford Law School
🎤R. H. Helmholz, Ruth Wyatt Rosenon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Law, The University of Chicago Law School
🎤J. Joel Alicea, CIT's Co-Director and Associate Professor of Law, The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law

And moderated by:
🎤Paul J. Ray, Director, Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies

Historically has Natural Law been symbiotic with American Law? Does American Law reject Natural Law? Or is it the undergirding of our legal system? Join us and watch this full event video as CIT Co-Director Professor J. Joel Alicea, Professor Jud Campbell (Stanford), and Professor R. H. Helmholz (Chicago) discuss this and much more.

This event is co-sponsored with the Heritage Foundation.

Watch the full video:
https://loom.ly/NaeRLag

The History of Natural Law in American Law Historically has Natural Law been symbiotic with American Law? Does American Law reject Natural Law? Or is it the undergirding of our legal system? Join us a...

Meet Prof. Marah Stith McLeod, one of the distinguished speakers of our April 17 event, "Rethinking the Great Writ."

Marah Stith McLeod joined Notre Dame Law School in 2016. She teaches criminal law and criminal procedure and studies legal and ethical problems in these areas. Her scholarship explores the distribution of decisional power in the criminal justice system and the theory and practice of criminal punishment, including the death penalty.

McLeod attended Yale Law School, where she was notes editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. She also served an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice.

After her government work, McLeod joined Sidley Austin LLP in Chicago and became a civil litigator and pro bono counsel in death penalty cases. She taught legal writing at Columbia Law School prior to coming to Notre Dame.

McLeod studied political theory at Harvard University, after which she spent a year working with Mother Teresa’s sisters in a home for handicapped orphans in Kolkata, India. McLeod now has four beloved children of her own.

Learn more and register here 👇
https://loom.ly/9GmgqeA

🤔 How should Americans think about the writ of habeas corpus? American jurists have long treated it as a bulwark of individual liberty, but new originalist scholarship argues that a more historically faithful understanding of the writ should focus instead on the concept of popular sovereignty. Recent Supreme Court cases have revealed deep confusion over the writ, demonstrating that we need an account of habeas corpus truer to its historical purpose.

Join CIT and AEI on April 17th for a discussion on new directions in interpreting the American writ of habeas corpus.

Register here 👇
https://loom.ly/9GmgqeA

Meet the speakers of this week's March 20 event, "The History of Natural Law in American Law," co-sponsored by CIT and The Heritage Foundation:

⚖️Prof. J. Joel Alicea, Co-Director of the Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, and Associate Professor of Law, The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law
⚖️Prof. Jud Campbell, Professor of Law, Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar, Stanford Law School
⚖️Prof. R. H. Helmholz, Ruth Wyatt Rosenon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Law, The University of Chicago Law School

⚖️Moderated by Paul J. Ray, Director, Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies

About the event:
In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the role of natural law in American law. Several important scholars, such as Jud Campbell and Richard H. Helmholz, have examined how courts and other legal actors used natural law reasoning at the Founding. Others, such as CIT's Co-Director J. Joel Alicea, have argued over whether the natural law tradition requires or is consistent with a particular theory of constitutional adjudication, such as originalism.

Join Professors Alicea, Campbell, and Helmholz for a lively discussion on the historical role that natural law has played in the American legal system and potential theoretical implications of natural law reasoning for constitutional adjudication, moderated by Heritage scholar Paul J. Ray.

👉 Register TODAY:
https://loom.ly/YgHoa48

We are thrilled to introduce you to Father Petar Popović, our speaker for next Thursday's 3/21 event, "Thomistic Juridical Realism."

Father Popović is an Adjunct Professor of Canon Law at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, Italy.

Father Popović’s lecture will address fundamental questions in Thomistic juridical realism like:
💭What is the first thing that strikes us about law, according to Aquinas?
💭Is law only found in posited legal norms, customs, and precedents, or also in morality?
💭Are there any elements of juridicity in the realm beyond positive law?
💭What is law, ontologically speaking? Why do we need positive law at all?
💭What is the status of unjust laws?

We are proud to have partnered with The Institute for Human Ecology to present you this event - register here:
https://loom.ly/7QURqOA

What is the first thing that strikes us about law, according to Aquinas? Is law only found in posited legal norms, customs, and precedents, or also in morality? Are there any elements of juridicity in the realm beyond positive law? What is law, ontologically speaking? Why do we need positive law at all? What is the status of unjust laws? Father Popović’s lecture will address these fundamental questions in Thomistic juridical realism, and more.

CIT partners with the Institute for Human Ecology for next week's March 21 event, "Thomistic Juridical Realism" with Father Popović and CIT Co-Director Kevin C. Walsh.

Register today 👇
https://loom.ly/zzq7ApY

This event is free and open to the public; a reception with refreshments will follow.

Meet the speakers of this Thursday's January 11 event, Religious Freedom And The Catholic Intellectual Tradition:

Robert T. Miller, F. Arnold Daum Chair in Corporate Finance and Law, The University of Iowa College of Law
and
Michael Moreland, University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion, and Public Policy, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law

Professor Miller and Professor Moreland will be joined by moderator Judge Thomas Hardiman, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Register to join us:
https://cit.catholic.edu/event/religious-freedom-and-the-catholic-intellectual-tradition/

Join Robert T. Miller (F. Arnold Daum Chair in Corporate Finance and Law, The University of Iowa College of Law) and Michael Moreland (University Professor of Law and Religion and Director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion, and Public Policy, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law) for CIT's first event of 2024: A Conversation on Religious Freedom and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. This conversation will be moderated by Judge Thomas Hardiman (United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit).

Learn more & register to join us:
https://cit.catholic.edu/event/religious-freedom-and-the-catholic-intellectual-tradition/

Join us THIS Thursday (Nov 30) & Friday (Dec 1) for the Making Men Moral Conference.

Thirty years ago, Robert P. George’s Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (Clarendon Press, 1993) challenged the consensus that justice requires governmental neutrality on contested questions of morality. Dr. George argued that moral neutrality in politics is impossible, that a proper concern for public morality can be a legitimate basis for laws and policies, and that natural law offered a more secure foundation for civil liberties than “neutralist” liberalism did.

How did Making Men Moral shape decades of debates about civil liberties and public morality? As these debates have evolved, how is Making Men Moral relevant going forward?

Please join the Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition at Catholic University, AEI, the Ethics & Public Policy Center, and Pepperdine University for a Conference to mark Making Men Moral’s enduring influence on public policy.

REGISTER HERE:
https://www.aei.org/events/making-men-moral-30th-anniversary-conference/

Join us at The Cato Institute for a discussion of Natural Property Rights and Eric Claeys’ forthcoming book of the same name, Tomorrow April 27th 2023!

Join us on March 16th for a discussion of the role of tradition in constitutional interpretation, in CSL 204! Hear from law professors from St. John’s University School of Law and Duke University School of Law.

Join us at The Heritage Foundation on February 6th at 5:30PM!

Join and Constitutional Studies at Notre Dame for a discussion on the influence the Catholic faith has had on the Establishment Clause! Hope to see you in CSL, 204 this Thursday.

What is the long-term visibility of pluralist societies? Join Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution & The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law for an in-person event at the Brookings Institute as experts discuss the future of liberalism on January 18th.

For more information: https://www.brookings.edu/events/the-future-of-liberalism-2/

Tomorrow! Check out our event with Lawrence Solum and Jamal Greene of Columbia Law, on judicial virtues. November 10th at 4 pm at Catholic Law.

What makes the administrative state morally legitimate in a constitutional republic? CIT, co-sponsored by American Enterprise Institute, will be hosting a panel at the American Enterprise Institute on Nov. 1st at 5:30

Co-sponsored by Georgetown Law, CIT presents a discussion on Nondelegation Doctrines and the Administrative State. Panelists include Chad Squitieri, Christine Chabot & The Honorable Trevor McFadden.

Understand the intersection of Constitutional Originalism and CIT at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law from the Honorable Judges Kyle Duncan, Paul Matey, and Amul Thapar, from the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth, Third, and Sixth Circuits, respectively.

Come by Heritage Hall at to hear from Prof. Russell Hittinger. Co-sponsored by the Thomistic Institute & The Institute for Human Ecology Hittinger will speak on the situation of Catholic Political Thought!