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New Univ. of Texas Law Class on "Understanding Conservative Legal Thought"

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I thought this item from Prof. John Greil at Texas was much worth passing along; he is still developing the syllabus, and comments and suggestions are welcome at john [dot] greil [at] law [dot] utexas [dot] edu:

Next fall semester, I'll be teaching a new course at Texas Law—Understanding Conservative Legal Thought. It's modeled largely off what Steve Sachs and Ernie Young did at Duke, as well as what Judge Katsas and Alida Kass are doing at George Washington. I want to give students a chance to grapple with the big legal debates happening right-of-center today, as well as teach students the skills to effectively advocate in front of today's judges.

The course will likely be seven 2-hour sessions, with (I'm hoping) some excellent guests joining us. In addition to the content, I'm really excited about the structure, where I aim to bring some of the seminar experience I had in Notre Dame's Great Books program (the Program of Liberal Studies) to the classroom. To that end, I plan to have students lead discussions and grade (partially) based on an oral exam.

I'd love to get feedback on the list, and I think your readership is the best place to get that feedback. [The readings largely include excerpts from the cited sources, not the entire works. -EV] I'm especially interested in pieces that work well with newcomers to the debates. The biggest problem (which is a good one to have!) is too much great stuff, and not enough time. I'm doing a one-credit course to get a feel of it, and hope to expand it the year after.

Session 1: What is a seminar?

  • Vincent Lloyd, A Black Professor Trapped in Anti-Racist Hell, Compact Magazine (Feb. 10, 2023)
  • Paula Marantz Cohen, The Lost Art of Academic Conversation, The Chronicle of Higher Education (Mar. 14, 2023)
  • Stephen E. Sachs, Institutions and Platforms, The Volokh Conspiracy (Oct. 26, 2020), https://reason.com/volokh/2020/10/26/institutions-and-platforms/

What is a Conservative?

Session 2: Individual Rights

  • Mary Ann Glendon, Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse (1991).
  • Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989).
  • Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (3d ed. 2007).
  • In re Abbott, 954 f.3d 772 (5th Cir. 2020), vacated, 141 S. Ct. 1261 (2021).
  • Adrian Vermeule, Common Good Constitutionalism: Recovering the Classical Legal Tradition (2022).
  • William H. Pryor, Jr., Against Living Common Goodism, 23 Federalist Soc'y Rev. 25 (2022).
  • Note, Blasphemy and the Original Meaning of the First Amendment, 135 Harv. L. Rev. 689 (2021).
  • Jud Campbell, Natural Rights and the First Amendment, 127 Yale L.J. 246 (2017).

Session 3: Federalism

  • John C. Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government, in Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun 3, 3–78 (Ross M. Lence ed., 1992) (1851).
  • The Lincoln–Douglas Debates of 1858, Nat'l Park Serv., https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debates.htm (click links for each debate).
  • A. Raymond Randolph, Before Roe v. Wade: Judge Friendly's Draft Abortion Opinion, 29 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 1035 (2015).
  • Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Org., 142 S. Ct. 2228, 2304–10 (2022) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring).
  • Joshua J. Craddock, Protecting Prenatal Persons: Does the Fourteenth Amendment Prohibit Abortion?, 40 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 539 (2018).
  • Brief for Professors Mary Ann Glendon and O. Carter Snead As Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Org., 142 S. Ct. 2228 (2022) (No. 19-1392).

Session 4: Originalism - Why?

  • Jorge Luis Borges, Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, in Ficciones (1962, Anthony Kerrigan ed.).
  • Robert H. Bork, Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems, 47 Ind. L.J. 1 (1971).
  • Antonin Scalia, Originalism: The Lesser Evil, 57 U. Cinn. L. Rev. 849 (1989).
  • Lawrence B. Solum, Originalism and Constitutional Construction, 82 Fordham L. Rev. 453 (2013).
  • Christopher R. Green, This Constitution: Constitutional Indexicals As a Basis for Textualist Semi-Originalism, 84 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1607 (2009).
  • William Baude, Is Originalism Our Law?, 115 Col. L. Rev. 2349 (2015).
  • Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469, 505–23 (2005) (Thomas, J., dissenting).
  • N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022).
  • Neomi Rao, Textualism's Political Morality, 73 Case W. Reserve L. Rev. 191 (2022).
  • Conor Casey & Adrian Vermeule, Judge Rao's Unintentional Surrender: On the Augustan Settlement of Our Law, New Dig. (Aug. 23, 2023), https://thenewdigest.substack.com/p/judge-raos-unintentional-surrender.

Session 5: Textualism - How?

  • Dwight MacDonald, The String Untuned: A Review of the Third Edition of Webster's New International Dictionary, New Yorker (1964).
  • David Foster Wallace, Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars on Usage, Harper's Mag., Apr. 2001, at 39, https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf.
  • Antonin Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation (Amy Gutmann ed., 2018).
  • Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts (2012).
  • Harvard Law School, The 2015 Scalia Lecture Series: A Dialogue with Justice Elena Kagan on the Reading of Statutes, YouTube, at 08:29 (Nov. 25, 2015), https://youtu.be/dpEtszFT0TgKagan.
  • John F. Manning, The Absurdity Doctrine, 116 Harv. L. Rev. 2387 (2003).
  • John F. Manning, The Means of Constitutional Power, 128 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (2014).
  • Thomas v. Reeves, 961 F.3d 800, 801 (5th Cir. 2020) (Costa, J., concurring & Willet, J., concurring in the judgment)
  • Biden v. Nebraska, 143 S. Ct. 2355, 2376–84 (2023) (Barrett, J., concurring).
  • Wooden v. United States, 595 U.S. 360 (2022) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring and Gorsuch, J., concurring in the judgment).
  • Jennings v. Rodriguez, 138 S. Ct. 830 (2018).
  • NLRB v. Cath. Bishop of Chi., 440 U.S. 490 (1979).
  • Bostock v. Clayton Cnty., 140 S. Ct. 1731 (2020).
  • William Baude, The 2023 Scalia Lecture: Beyond Textualism?, 46 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y (forthcoming 2023), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4464561#.

Session 6: Role of the Judiciary

  • Alexander Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics (1986).
  • Antonin Scalia, The Rule of Law As a Law of Rules, 56 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1175 (1989).
  • Jonathan F. Mitchell, The Writ-of­-Erasure Fallacy, 104 Va. L. Rev. 933 (2018).
  • Whole Women's Health v. Jackson, 595 U.S. 30 (2021).
  • Samuel L. Bray, Multiple Chancellors: Reforming the National Injunction, 131 Harv. L. Rev. 417 (2017).
  • Arizona v. Biden, 40 F.4th 375, 395 (6th Cir. 2022) (Sutton, J., concurring).
  • Gamble v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 1960, 1980–89 (2019) (Thomas, J., concurring).
  • Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 535–49 (2007) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting).

Session 7: Final Thoughts

  • Revisit and synthesize

UPDATE: Since this topic has come up, I thought I'd also pass along a syllabus for another Conservative Legal Thought class, taught by Prof. Paul Horwitz (Alabama) in Spring 2020:

1          INTRODUCTION: CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM
1) Edmund Fawcett, Liberalism: The Life of an Idea, 2nd edition, excerpts
2) Edmund Fawcett, Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition, excerpts
3) Michael Freeden, Liberalism: A Very Short Introduction, pp. 58-64, 93-104
4) Russell Kirk, Conservatism Defined, in Bacevich, ed., American Conservatism: Reclaiming an Intellectual Tradition
5) Frank S. Meyer, The Recrudescent American Conservatism, in Bacevich, ed., American Conservatism: Reclaiming an Intellectual Tradition
OPTIONAL READINGS
1) Michael Oakeshott, On Being Conservative, parts 1, 3, 4 (superb discussion of conservatism as a "disposition" and its relationship to politics)
2) Edmund Burke, Excerpts from Reflections on the Revolution in France; Letter to William Elliot, May 26, 1795 (canonical discussions of conservatism)
3) Francis Fukuyama, Liberalism and its Discontents (discussion of modern challenges to and criticisms of liberalism, which will serve as a sort of preview, for those who are interested, of the discussion in the last couple of weeks)

2          CONSERVATIVE LEGAL THOUGHT
1) Michael W. McConnell, Four Faces of Conservative Legal Thought (1988)
2) Mary Becker, Four Faces of Liberal Legal Thought (1988)
3) Laura Kalman, The Strange Career of Legal Liberalism, excerpts
4) Johnathan O'Neill, Constitutional Conservatism and American Conservatism
5) Bruce P. Frohnen, Law's Culture: Conservatism and the American Constitutional Order

3          CONSERVATIVE LEGAL THOUGHT: "ACTIVISM" VS. "RESTRAINT"
1) Richard A. Posner, Reflections on Judging, excerpt
2) Randy E. Barnett, The Judicial Duty to Scrutinize Legislation
3) Clark Neily, Judicial Engagement Means No More Make-Believe Judging
4) Ernest Young, Judicial Activism and Conservative Politics
5) J. Harvie Wilkinson III, The Lost Arts of Judicial Restraint
6) Lillian R. BeVier, Judicial Restraint: An Argument From Institutional Design
OPTIONAL READINGS
1) Jack M. Balkin, Why Liberals and Conservatives Flipped on Judicial Restraint: Judicial Review in the Cycles of Constitutional Time
2) Suzanna Sherry, Why We Need More Judicial Activism

4          FIRST-GENERATION ORIGINALISM
1) Edwin Meese II, Toward a Jurisprudence of Original Intent
2) William J. Brennan Jr., Construing the Constitution
3) Paul Brest, The Misconceived Quest for the Original Understanding
4) Richard S. Kay, Adherence to the Original Intentions in Constitutional Adjudication: Three Objections and Responses
OPTIONAL READINGS:
1) Henry P. Monaghan, Our Perfect Constitution
2) Antonin Scalia, Originalism: The Lesser Evil
3) Randy E. Barnett, Scalia's Infidelity: A Critique of Faint-Hearted Originalism

5          MODERN ORIGINALISM
1) Keith Whittington, Originalism: A Critical Introduction
2) Lee J. Strang, Originalism's Promise, excerpt
3) William Baude, Originalism as a Constraint on Judges
4) Mark Tushnet, Heller and the New Originalism
5) Thomas Colby, The Sacrifice of the New Originalism

6          NATURAL LAW
1) American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, "Natural law"
2) Lee J. Strang, Originalism's Promise, excerpt
3) Robert P. George, Natural Law, God and Human Dignity
4) Hadley Arkes, A Natural Law Manifesto or an Appeal From the Old Jurisprudence to the New
5) John Hart Ely, Democracy and Distrust
6) Alex Kozinski, Natural Law Jurisprudence: A Skeptical Perspective
OPTIONAL READING:
1) Gerard V. Bradley, Natural Law Theory and Constitutionalism
2) Lino A. Graglia, Jaffa's Quarrel With Bork: Religious Belief Masquerading as Constitutional Argument

7          PRECEDENT
1) William Baude, Precedent and Discretion
2) Thomas W. Merrill, The Conservative Case for Precedent
3) Steven G. Calabresi, Text vs. Precedent in Constitutional Law
4) Michael Stokes Paulsen, The Intrinsically Corrupting Influence of Precedent
5) David A. Strauss, Foreword: Does the Constitution Mean What it Says?
6) Randy J. Kozel, Settled Versus Right: A Theory of Precedent, excerpts
OPTIONAL READING
1) Justin Driver, The Significance of the Frontier in American Constitutional Law

8          LIBERTARIANISM
1) American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, "Libertarianism"
2) Antonin Scalia, Economic Affairs vs. Human Affairs
3) Richard A. Epstein, Judicial Review: Reckoning on Two Kinds of Error
4) Randy E. Barnett, Is the Constitution Libertarian?
5) Trevor W. Morrison, Lamenting Lochner's Loss: Randy Barnett's Case for a Libertarian Constitution
OPTIONAL READING:
1) Roger Pilon, The Origins of the Libertarian Legal Movement

9          SOCIAL CONSERVATISM
1) Excerpts from Bowers, Romer, and Lawrence
2) Robert H. Bork, Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems
3) Robert H. Bork, Slouching Toward Gomorrah, excerpts
4) Steven G. Gey, Is Moral Relativism a Constitutional Command?
5) Gerald Dworkin, Devlin Was Right: Law and the Enforcement of Morality

10        TRADITIONALISM
1) Rebecca L. Brown, Tradition and Insight
2) David Luban, Legal Traditionalism
3) Marc O. DeGirolami, The Traditions of American Constitutional Law
4) Steven D. Smith, In Search of Conservatism
5) Michael H. v. Gerald D., Obergefell v. Hodges, excerpts
OPTIONAL READINGS
1) Michael W. McConnell, The Right to Die and the Jurisprudence of Tradition

11        INTEGRALISM AND "COMMON-GOOD CONSTITUTIONALISM"
1) Adrian Vermeule, Beyond Originalism
2) Common-Good Constitutionalism: A Model Opinion
3) Adrian Vermeule, Integration From Within
4) Edmund Waldstein, What is Integralism Today?
5) Micah Schwartzman & Jocelyn Wilson, The Unreasonableness of Catholic Integralism
6) Randy E. Barnett, Common-Good Constitutionalism Reveals the Dangers of Any Non
-originalist Approach to the Constitution
7) Jack Balkin, Common Good versus Public Good
8) Rick Hills, Picking the Best Fight with Adrian Vermeule

12        LEFT MEETS RIGHT: ANTI-LIBERALISM, ILLIBERALISM, AND CRITICAL STUDIES
1) Park MacDougald, A Catholic Debate Over Liberalism
2) Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed, excerpts
3) Richard Schragger and Micah Schwartzman, Religious Antiliberalism and the First Amendment
4) Stephen Holmes, The Anatomy of Antiliberalism, excerpts
5) Zack Beauchamp, The anti-liberal moment
6) James R. Rogers, The Return of Utopian Romanticism
7) Samuel Moyn, Neoliberalism, Not Liberalism, Has Failed
8) Steven D. Smith, The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse, excerpts

13        CONCLUSIONS
1) Frank S. Meyer, The Recrudescent American Conservatism, in Bacevich, ed., American Conservatism: Reclaiming an Intellectual Tradition
2) Sen. Josh Hawley, Was it All for This? The Failure of the Conservative Legal Movement
3) Brad Littlejohn, Individual and National Freedom: Toward a New Conservative Fusion
4) Julius Krein, The Three Fusions