The Constitution, The Courts, and Conservatism
Explore the debates within conservative legal thought on the courts and the Constitution.
April 13 – April 15, 2018
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The Supreme Court’s 2017-18 term could be the most consequential term in decades, as justices consider major cases involving religious liberty, immigration, cell phone privacy, voting rights, and gerrymandering. In this weekend seminar, students will consider two key cases from this momentous term, with a view toward understanding how politics and law interact, the different approaches to constitutional judgment and rhetoric, and the impact of the Court’s decisions on American lives.
This seminar will be taught by Adam White, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and executive director of the Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Images: “Supreme Court” by Matt Wade | Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 | “Affordable Care Act arguments, Day 2” by angela n., | Flickr, CC BY 2
This weekend seminar will take place in Washington, DC. It is a full-time commitment for Friday–Sunday, with required sessions in the morning, afternoon, and some evenings.
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Mr. White practiced constitutional and administrative law, particularly in the regulation of energy and financial markets. He started his legal career as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Mr. White has testified often before Congress, including before the Senate’s Committees on the Judiciary; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and before the House’s Judiciary and Financial Services Committees. In 2018, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary called him to testify in Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings to advise senators on Kavanaugh’s approach to administrative law.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, where he criticized “Court packing” and other efforts to restructure the Supreme Court. In 2017, he was appointed to serve on the Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves on the leadership council for the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, which he will chair in 2023–24. Before joining AEI, he was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Mr. White has a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of business administration from the College of Business at the University of Iowa.
Michael S. Greve joined the faculty of the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University after having served as John G. Searle Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Prior to joining AEI, Greve was founder and co-director of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm specializing in constitutional litigation. Greve has provided congressional and state legislative testimony, has lobbied and consulted in federal agency proceedings, and has provided litigation services and management in over 30 cases, including matters before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Adam J. White
Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Darren Staloff
Darren Staloff is a retired Professor of History from the City College of New York and the Graduate Center of CUNY. Professor Staloff has published numerous papers and reviews on the subject of early American history.
Ralph Lerner
Ralph Lerner is the Benjamin Franklin Professor Emeritus in the College and professor emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He is the author, most recently, of Naïve Readings: Reveilles Political and Philosophic (University of Chicago Press).