Constitutional Law and History Program
The Constitutional Law and History Program was inaugurated with the delivery of the ILR Lecture in Constitutional Law. The first lecture, "School Vouchers: Federal Constitutional Issues After the Cleveland Case," was given by Professor Jesse H. Choper on September 18, 2002. Subsequent speakers have included John Fabian Witt of Columbia University and John Witte, Jr. from Emory University.
CONSTITUTION LAW PROGRAM TALK ON "IF LINCOLN HAD LIVED....?," OCTOBER 21, 2009
(presented in conjunction with the Northern District of California Court Historical Society and the Northern District Practice Program)
Judge William Alsup, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
and
Professor Emeritus Michael Les Benedict, Ohio State University
Wednesday, October 21, 2009, 5:00-6:00 pm
450 Golden Gate Avenue, 19th floor
San Francisco, California
1.0 hour of MCLE credit
The Northern District of California Practice Program is a State Bar of California Approved Provider
What if John Wilkes Booth's assassination attempt had failed, and Lincoln had lived? The Northern District of California Court Historical Society, the Northern District Practice Program, and the Institute for Legal Research present a discussion with Judge William Alsup and Professor Michael Les Benedict on what might have been:
• How might a second Lincoln term have affected the Reconstruction of the Union, the status of African Americans, and race relations today?
• Would we still have the Fourteenth Amendment that shapes so much of our constitutional adjudication?
• Might the Thirteenth Amendment have greater present-day relevance?
Judge Alsup joined the U.S. District Court in 1999 after being nominated by President Bill Clinton. He received his law degree as well as his Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University. He has served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, as well as assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General in the Justice Department.
Professor Benedict is a recognized authority in constitutional and legal history, the history of civil rights, and the Civil War and Reconstruction. He taught for many years at Ohio State University, and has also been a visiting professor at MIT, Yale Law School, the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, and Hokkaido and Doshisha Universities in Japan.
The program is free, but space is limited. To RSVP, send an email with the names and number of people attending to HistoricalSociety@cand.uscourts.gov.
For any questions, please call 415-522-4620 or email HistoricalSociety@cand.uscourts.gov.
CONSTITUTION WEEK EVENTS, SEPTEMBER 15 AND 17, 2009
The Institute for Legal Research organized two events in connection with Constitution Day (September 17), the national celebration of the signing of the U.S. Constitution:
"Civil Rights and Civil Liberties: The Constitution in Crisis Times"
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
12:15-1:50 pm, 110 Boalt Hall
This colloquium featured talks on the "Constitutional Crisis in Birmingham: The Civil Rights Movement and Beyond," by Willoughby Anderson, Law Clerk, Chambers of Senior Judge John T. Nixon, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee; and "Martial Law and Military Courts: Hawaii in World War II," presented by Harry N. Scheiber, Professor of Law, and Jane Scheiber, Asst. Dean (Ret.) of Chemistry and CSLS Research Associate, UC Berkeley. Professors Goodwin Liu and Gordon Silverstein, UC Berkeley, provided commentary for the event.
The colloquium was co-sponsored by UC Berkeley's Center for the Study of Law and Society.
***
"Technology, Democracy, and the Law"
Thursday, September 17, 2009
2:00-4:30 pm, Bancroft Hotel, 2680 Bancroft Way, Berkeley
This forum featured a talk by Professor Steven Usselman of the School of History, Technology, and Society at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Professor Usselman specializes in the history of technology and American political economy. His book, Regulating Railroad Innovation: Business, Technology, and Politics in America, 1840-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 2002), won the Ellis W. Hawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians and the Hilton Prize in railroad history. He also served as the president of the Society for the History of Technology from 2007-2008.
Commentators included Professor Robert P. Merges, Director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, UC Berkeley, and Lee Tien, Senior Staff Attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.
The forum was co-sponsored by UC Berkeley's Jefferson Memorial Lectureship.
To hear the audio recording of this talk, click here.
CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT CELEBRATION, APRIL 7, 2009
The completion of oral histories documenting the recollections and reminiscences of four former justices – Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas, Justice Edward A. Panelli, Justice John A. Arguelles, and Justice Armand Arabian – was celebrated at a ceremony held by the California Supreme Court Historical Society on April 7, 2009 in Los Angeles. The four justices, all appointees of Governor George Deukmejian, were presented with leather-bound transcripts of their oral histories. The histories of former Chief Justice Philip S. Gibson, as well as former Justices Jesse W. Carter, Stanley Mosk, Frank C. Newman, Allen E. Broussard, Cruz Reynoso, and Joseph Grodin have also been recorded. To see the Historical Society's newsletter covering the event, click here.
The interviews will eventually be archived at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library for use by scholars, students, the bench and bar, and the general public. The supervisor for the project is Professor Harry N. Scheiber, Director of the Institute for Legal Research, UC Berkeley, with interviews conducted by oral historian Laura McCreery of the Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley.
ILR CONSTITUTIONAL LAW EVENTS
FORUM ON "COURTS, POLITICS, AND THE MEDIA, SEPTEMBER 16, 2008This forum on the interplay of courts, politics, and the media showcased several nationally prominent journalists, including Linda Greenhouse, formerly of the New York Times, where she served for 30 years as the nation’s foremost reporter covering the U.S. Supreme Court. Other speakers included Judge William A. Fletcher of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and member of the UC Berkeley faculty; Emily Bazelon, a legal writer for Slate.com; Henry Weinstein, legal reporter and analyst for the Los Angeles Times until his recent retirement; and Gordon Silverstein, a professor in UC Berkeley’s Political Science Department. The forum also featured a panel of specialists, including Berkeley Law professors Goodwin Liu and Jesse H. Choper, and Molly Selvin, a legal historian and former reporter and editorial staff member on the LA Times, who is interim dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
To see The Berkeleyan article covering the event, click here. To see a copy of the forum program, click here.
SYMPOSIUM ON "LAW, WAR, AND HISTORY," FEBRUARY 16-17, 2007
Scholars from England, Israel, Japan, and the United States met at Boalt Hall to deliver and discuss papers at a symposium on "Law, War, and History." Presentations from the conference were published in 2008 as a special issue of the Law and History Review, the official journal of the American Society for Legal History, and includes revised conference papers on international law from ancient to modern times. This event was co-sponsored by the William Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
To see a copy of the conference program, click here.
CONFERENCE ON "EARL WARREN AND THE WARREN COURT: A FIFTY-YEAR RETROSPECT," FEBRUARY 27-28, 2004
This conference commemorated the constitutional legacy of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren and the Warren Court (and marked the fiftieth-year anniversary of the Warren Court's initial term). Several of the lectures dealt with the impact of the Warren Court on legal development in Europe, Asia, and the Americas; others treated the Court's legacy in U.S. law in major areas such as criminal justice, freedom of speech, equal protection, and desegregation. The proceedings from the conference, Earl Warren and the Warren Court: The Legacy in American and Foreign Law (edited by Harry N. Scheiber), were published by Lexington Books.
For a copy of the conference program, click here. For photos from the conference, click here.
The conference dinner featured speeches by UC Berkeley Chancellor Emeritus Robert M. Berdahl and four former Warren Court clerks: Professor Jesse H. Choper, UC Berkeley; Chancellor Emeritus Ira Michael Heyman, UC Berkeley; Professor Scott Bice, University of Southern California; and Hon. James R. Browning, U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit. To read Chancellor Berdahl's talk, click here. To read Judge Browning's remarks, click here.
ILR LECTURES IN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
"Stranger in a Surprisingly Strange Land: A Canadian Lawyer Defends Lord Conrad Black in U.S. Federal Court in Chicago"
(co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Law and Society; the Berkeley Center for Law, Business, and the Economy; the Institute for Governmental Studies, and the Canadian Studies Program)
Edward Greenspan, Q.C., Senior Partner, Greenspan, White
January 30, 2008
"The Transformation of Law and Economy in Early America"
Professor Bruce H. Mann, Harvard University
March 9, 2007
"The Rule of Law in the Age of Terrorism -- An Audit"
(co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Law and Society)
Professor David Neal, Q.C., Visiting Scholar, Institute for Legal Research
January 30, 2007
"The King and the Dean: Melvin Belli, Roscoe Pound, and the Common Law Nation"
(co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Law and Society)
Professor John Fabian Witt, Columbia University
November 9, 2006
"State Constitutions for the Twenty-First Century"
(co-sponsored with the Institute for Governmental Studies)
Professor Robert F. Williams, Rutgers School of Law-Camden
October 11, 2006
"The Almighty and the Dollar: Catholics, Protestants, and School Funding At Mid-Century"
Professor Sarah Gordon, University of Pennsylvania
April 6, 2006
"Someday All This Will Be Yours: Aging Parents, Adult Children, and Inheritance in the Modern Era"
(co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Law and Society)
Professor Hendrik Hartog, Princeton University
January 31, 2006
"Separation of Church and State: Facts and Fictions of American History"
Professor John Witte, Jr., Emory University
February 7, 2005
"Inside the 9-ll Commission: The Bush White House, Executive Privilege, and Separation of Powers"
Daniel Marcus, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States ("9-11 Commission")
November 10, 2004
"Property Rights and Military Necessity in American Constitutional Law"
(co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Law and Society)
Professor Harry N. Scheiber, UC Berkeley
January 27, 2004
"Sweden During the Second World War"
(co-sponsored with the Robbins Collection)
Professor Jan-Olof Sundell, Stockholm University
November 5, 2003
"School Vouchers: Federal Constitutional Issues After the Cleveland Case"
Professor Jesse H. Choper, UC Berkeley
September 18, 2002
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
"Law, War, and History: A Special Issue," Law and History Review, Volume 26, Fall 2008.
Earl Warren and the Warren Court: The Legacy in American and Foreign Law, edited by Harry N. Scheiber, Lexington Books, 2007.
Individual Rights and Liberties under the U.S. Constitution: The Case Law of the U.S. Supreme Court, by Ioannis G. Dimitrakopoulos, Brill Academic Publishers, 2007.
"Taking Liberties," by Harry N. Scheiber and Jane L. Scheiber, Legal Affairs, May/June 2003.