The James Wilson Foundation on Natural Rights and the American Founding

In his column for The Catholic Thing, Prof, Arkes honors his late friend Ralph McInerny by drawing on McInerny’s explanation of natural law as “something your grandmother would understand.” Rather than being an esoteric theory, natural law is fundamentally about common sense propositions that your grandmother would have instinctually apprehended and that only a professional […]

JWI mourns the loss of our good friend, scholar, and deeply influential member of the bench, Judge Stephen Williams. Judge Williams was always a joy to be around, whether it was his participation in JWI conferences, his marvelous opinions on the D.C. Circuit, or just seeing him at our unofficial home the University Club where […]

JWI friend and Notre Dame law professor Gerard Bradley argues in the National Catholic Register that Bostock v. Clayton County need not be understood as a sweeping, regime-altering decision, such as previous Supreme Court decisions like Roe v. Wade and Obergefell v. Hodges. In Roe and Obergefell, the Court embarked on exercises of constitutional revision, […]

James Wilson Institute friend Rabbi David Novak coauthored a recent statement by the Jewish Pro Life Foundation (JPLF) in response to the National Council of Jewish Women’s (NCJW) statement “The Jewish Case for Abortion Rights.” Rabbi Novak and his JPLF colleagues argue that a “right to abortion” finds no basis in the Torah and conflicts […]

JWI Affiliated Attorney Gunnar Gundersen takes on rioters, Nazis, and Antifa looters in an article attacking the relativistic view of free speech advanced by the American Civil Liberties Union and other free speech fundamentalists. Gundersen argues that by holding as equally valid the speech of neo-Nazis marching through a Jewish neighborhood and the speech of […]

JWI Affiliated Scholar Josh Craddock lauded the recent draft report of the State Department’s Commission on Human Rights in a new article for Newsweek. He broke down the distinction between the American tradition of natural rights and the progressive preoccupation with pragmatic positive rights. Craddock roots the American rights tradition in the Declaration of Independence […]

In First Things, JWI founder and director Prof. Hadley Arkes criticizes conservative commentators who have taken greater issue with the legal methodology in Justice Neil Gorsuch’s Bostock v. Clayton County opinion than with the fundamental moral claims the decision makes. At the core of the opinion, Prof. Arkes claims, is a fundamental rejection of human […]

On July 7th, JWI founder and director Prof. Hadley Arkes sat down with Lutheran Radio’s Issues, etc. Podcast to discuss the Black Lives Matter protests, incendiary riots, and the nation’s complicated history with slavery. Prof. Arkes offers insight into the views of the founders and the people of the early United States with regard to slavery. […]

On June 25th, JWI founder and director Prof. Hadley Arkes sat down with Lutheran Radio’s Issues, etc. to discuss the Supreme Court’s Bostock ruling on transgenderism and what it means for conservatives and religious freedom moving forward. Prof. Arkes offers insight into constitutional interpretation and how the Natural Law tradition informs the understanding of what […]

This article was originally published in Newsweek and may be accessed here. When General Ulysses S. Grant received General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox to arrange the surrender of his Army, Grant recalled their service together in the Mexican War, when Grant was a young officer. Grant was able to summon his sympathy for “the […]