30th Jorde Symposium: Against Constitutional Theory

Please join the Berkeley Law community for the annual Jorde Symposium featuring Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Berkeley School of Law, who will speak “Against Constitutional Theory.”

For the last half century, many constitutional law professors and judges have engaged in a futile quest to develop a theory of constitutional law that constrains courts and that reconciles judicial review with democracy. No theory can succeed in these goals. The quest is destructive because it creates a false impression of constitutional decision-making and, in doing so asks the wrong questions while obscuring the right ones.

Lecturer

Erwin Chemerinsky is Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law.  Prior to assuming this position he was the founding dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law, and a professor at Duke Law School, University of Southern California Law School, and DePaul Law School.  He is the author of 20 books and over 200 law review articles.  His most recent major book, No Democracy Lasts Forever:  How the Constitution Threatens the United States, was published in August 2024. He frequently argues appellate cases, including in the United States Supreme Court.  In 2022, he was the President of the Association of American Law Schools.

Commentators

Khiara M. Bridges, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law

Lawrence B. Solum, Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law

This event is hosted by UC Berkeley Law in partnership with the Brennan Center for Justice

The symposium will be followed by a reception in the Donor Lobby.

REGISTER HERE