History
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“The True Meaning of the Pentagon Papers”- Professor Hadley Arkes in City Journal
Writing in City Journal, Professor Hadley Arkes debunks the now-iconic narrative–championed most recently in Steven Spielberg’s film The Post–that the Pentagon Papers case (1971) presents a high-water mark for the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence concerning the First Amendment. The per curiam opinion of the Court vindicated the Washington Post’s right to publish classified government documents prior to an executive […] -
“Putting The ‘Big’ In Big Government” – Prof. Michael Uhlmann in The Claremont Review of Books
In a piece for the Claremont Review of Books, JWI Senior Scholar Prof. Michael Uhlmann reviews Prof. Joseph Postell’s Bureaucracy in America: The Administrative State’s Challenge to Constitutional Government. Prof. Uhlmann articulates the reasons for the intellectual, legal, and political development of the administrative state. Some Excerpts: “By allowing agency rules to have binding effect […] -
“Conservatives And Freedom Of Speech” – Prof. Hadley Arkes in the Claremont Review of Books
Writing in the Claremont Review of Books, Prof. Hadley Arkes details the intellectual poverty of defending a notion of “free of speech” that denies any limiting principles on speech. The piece, “Conservatives and Freedom of Speech: Backing into Relativism?” is nicely described by Scott Johnson of PowerlineBlog: “Professor Arkes focuses on the philosophical ground on […] -
“What’s Wrong with Rod Dreher’s Straussian Narrative of the American Constitution” – Paul DeHart from Public Discourse
In “What’s Wrong with Rod Dreher’s Straussian Narrative of the American Constitution” Professor Paul R. DeHart examines the argument that modernity begins with the Enlightenment and how that premise impacts any understanding of the constitution. Professor DeHart teaches Political Science at Texas State University. Some Excerpts: “While it is certainly true that Christianity has moral implications and […] -
“The Left’s Dirty Little Secret” – Prof. Michael Uhlmann in the Claremont Review of Books
Earlier this year the Claremont Review of Books published Prof. Michael Uhlmann’s review of Thomas Leonard’s Illiberal Reformers. Prof. Uhlmann, a JWI Senior Scholar, notes “that eugenics lay at the very center of the progressive program,” and how it it powerfully brought together “a dogmatic faith in science and the scientific method, a comparable belief in […] -
“Jack Phillips Has His Day In Court” – Prof. Hadley Arkes in the Claremont Review of Books Digital
In early December 2017, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The case concerns a weave of questions on freedom of religious expression, limitations on speech, and laws on public accommodations in the state of Colorado. In an essay for the Claremont Review of Books Digital, ”Jack Phillips Has His Day […] -
“Are Intellectual Property Rights Moral?” – Gunnar Gundersen in Starting Points Journal
In the digital age, intellectual property – from proprietary algorithms to music – may be just as valuable as real estate and factories. In a piece for Starting Points Journal entitled, “Are Intellectual Property Rights Moral?,” JWI Affiliated Scholar and intellectual property attorney Gunnar Gundersen examines the moral grounds and judicial precedents concerning property rights, with […] -
Forgotten Cases: “Worthen v. Thomas and the Contract Clause” –Prof. David Forte in The Federalist Society Review
In a recent article for the Federalist Society Review, Professor David Forte, JWI Senior Scholar, corrects our jurisprudential history on the Contract Clause by re-examining two opinions from the Supreme Court of the 1930s: Home Building & Loan v. Blaisdell and Worthen v. Thomas. Professor Forte articulates how, contrary to a standard narrative in constitutional […] -
James Wilson Lecture – “The Scottish Enlightenment and the Founding” –Prof. Daniel Robinson
On November 3rd, 2017, Prof. Daniel Robinson, Fellow of the Faculty at Oxford University and Senior Fellow at the Wheatley Institution, delivered the bi-annual James Wilson Lecture. Prof. Robinson has published over 40 books on psychology and philosophy. He writes widely on the constitutional history of the United States and its philosophical foundations with original research […] -
“Natural Justice and the Amistad”–Professor Justin Dyer in Starting Points
Justin Dyer, Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri and an Affiliated Scholar of JWI, recalls the oral argument of John Quincy Adams in the historic Supreme Court case of United States v. Amistad (1841). In a piece published at Starting Points, a journal of the Kinder Institute, Dyer explains Adams’s use of arguments based […]