THE ROBERTS COURT: PAST AND PROLOGUE?
 Jonathan H. Adler - Professor of Law and Director, Center for Business Law and Regulation at Case Western Reserve University |
 Jonathan L. Entin - Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law and Political Science at Case Western Reserve University |
 Kenneth F. Ledford - Associate Professor of History and Law at Case Western Reserve University |
Friday September 11, 2009
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Crawford Hall - Room 9
Inamori Center
Case Western Reserve University
Dear Colleagues,
Various news reports suggest that the Supreme Court since President Bush’s appointments of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito has moved “to the right.” Now President Obama has made his first choice, Justice Sotomayor. What could that mean for the Court in future years?
We might expect that replacing Justice O’Connor with Justice Alito would be a bigger change than replacing Justice Souter with Justice Sotomayor. But neither the Court’s cases nor all issues split so neatly on a “left/right” dimension, and a nominee who seems liberal by some standards may seem less so by others.
As the Court’s new session begins, three of CWRU’s experts on constitutional law will present their varied perspectives on where the Court has been and where it might go in the future.
Our Friday lunch schedule has recently been revised. Please see the revised schedule below. As usual, we will gather in Room 9 of the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence, on the lower level of Crawford Hall, for free cookies, beverages, and brown bag lunch.
Best regards,
Joe White
About Our Guests
Jonathan H. Adler is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Business Law & Regulation at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. A prolific writer, he is one of the most widely cited academics in environmental law. His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Supreme Court Economic Review to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Professor Adler is the author or editor of three books on environmental policy, including Environmentalism at the Crossroads (1995), and several book chapters. A regular commentator on environmental and legal issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, including the PBS “Newshour with Jim Lehrer,” NPR's “Talk of the Nation,” Fox News Channel's “O'Reilly Factor” and “Hannity & Colmes,” and Entertainment Tonight. Professor Adler is a contributing editor to National Review Online and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, “The Volokh Conspiracy”.
Professor Adler teaches courses in environmental, regulatory, and constitutional law. In 2004, Professor Adler received the Paul M. Bator Award, given annually by the Federalist Society for Law and Policy Studies to an academic under 40 for excellence in teaching, scholarship, and commitment to students. In 2007, the Case Western Reserve University Law Alumni Association awarded Professor Adler their annual “Distinguished Teacher Award.” Professor Adler serves on the advisory board of the NFIB Legal Foundation, the academic advisory board of the Cato Supreme Court Review, and the Environmental Law Reporter and ELI Press Advisory Board of the Environmental Law Institute.
Jonathan L. Entin has taught Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Courts, Public Policy, and Social Change, and a Supreme Court Seminar. Before joining the faculty in 1984, he clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (when she was on the U.S. court of Appeals) and practiced in Washington with Steptoe & Johnson. The recipient of several teaching awards and a former co-editor of the Journal of Legal Education, he is at work on a book about equal protection. Among his recent publications are "An Ohio Dilemma: Race, Equal Protection, and the Unfulfilled Promise of a State Bill of Rights," Cleveland State Law Review (2004), and "Judicial Selection and Political Culture," Capital University Law Review (2002).
Kenneth F. Ledford is a social historian of modern Germany, from 1789 to the present. His research interests focus primarily upon processes of class formation, particularly the emergence and decline of the profound influence of the educated, liberal middle-class of education, the Bildungsbürgertum. The salient ideology of this social group was classical liberalism, whose vocabulary both shaped and was shaped by the primary social institution of the Bürgertum, law and the legal order. He has written about German lawyers in private practice, and his present work is on a book about the Prussian judiciary between 1848 and 1918; in all his work, a clearer analysis of the complex interplay among state, civil society, and the ideology of the state ruled by law (Rechtsstaat) remains the goal. His teaching interests extend beyond German history since 1789 to include the history of the European middle classes, the history of the professions, European legal history, other processes of class formation including German and European labor history, as well as the history of European international relations and diplomatic history. He enjoys interdisciplinary intellectual work by belonging to the faculties of the College of Arts and Sciences as well as the School of Law, and by participating in both the International Studies and German Studies programs within the College of Arts and Sciences.
REVISED Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
September 18: The Constitution and Human Rights. With Peter H. Irons, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, UC San Diego.
September 25: Where is Germany Heading? The September 27 Elections. With Mark Cassell, Associate Professor of Political Science, Kent State University
October 2: Burning River Reborn? The State of the Cuyahoga. With Michael Scott, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
October 9: ***Special Location - Clark Hall Room 206, the Baker-Nord Center Seminar Room*** Bush, Barack, and the Meltdown. With Kathryn C. Lavelle, Ellen and Dixon Long Associate Professor of World Affairs. Room to be determined
October 16: Virtue, Vice, and Contraband: The History of Contraception in America. With James M. Edmonson, Curator, Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum
October 23: Reforming Cuyahoga County Government. Speakers TBA
October 30: The University’s “Internationalization” Initiative. With David Fleshler, Associate Provost for International Affairs
November 6: Unhealthy Claims
About “Healthy” Foods. With Hope Barkoukis, Associate Professor of
Nutrition
November 13: What Should the Common Reading for New Students Do?
With Mano Singham, Director, University Center for Innovation in
Teaching and Education
November 20: Chesapeake Bay and the Need for Dark Green Environmentalism. With Howard R. Ernst, Associate Professor of Political Science, U.S. Naval Academy
November 27: Thanksgiving Break
December 4: What the Health Care
Reform Legislation Will Do, or Why Health Care Reform Failed, or Health Care
Reform: What Next? or All of the Above. With Joe White, Professor of
Political Science
The Friday Lunch discussions are held on the lower (ground) level of
Crawford Hall. Visitors with mobility issues may find it easiest to take advantage of special arrangements we have made. On most Fridays, a few parking spaces in the V.I.P. lot in between Crawford Hall and Amasa Stone Chapel are held for participants in the lunch discussion.
Visitors then can avoid walking up the hill to the first floor of Crawford by entering the building on the ground level, through the garage area under the building. The further door on the left in that garage will be left unlocked during the period before the Friday lunch. On occasion, parking will be unavailable because of other university events.
For more information about these and other Center for Policy Studies programs,
please see http://policy.case.edu.
