After a high school student with initials B.L. posted a snap on the social media app Snapchat complaining about sports and school, she was suspended from the cheerleading team. She sued the school for violating her First Amendment rights and appealed up to the U.S. Supreme Court; the court heard arguments in the case, Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L ., this week, which could become the court’s first major ruling on student speech in decades. On this week’s episode, we recap the oral argument...
Apr 29, 2021•42 min
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear argument in a key consolidated case about the First Amendment and donor disclosure laws. Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Rodriquez asks whether a policy of the California attorney general’s office that requires charities to disclose the names and addresses of their major donors violates the First Amendment. Cindy Lott, Associate Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University and Academic Program Director for Nonprofit Management Program at...
Apr 22, 2021•52 min
Recently, the Supreme Court seemingly put an end to the legal battle over whether President Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking people on Twitter by instructing the lower court to declare the case moot. Justice Thomas authored a separate concurring opinion that expanded on the language of the Court’s decision to discuss the power of social media platforms over free speech. This week, we discuss that opinion and the potential broader impacts of this case—now known as Biden v. Knight Fi...
Apr 15, 2021•1 hr 11 min
This week we dive into the fascinating history of global constitutionalism and declarations of independence. Linda Colley of Princeton University, author of the new book The Gun, The Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World, and David Armitage of Harvard University author of The Declaration of Independence: A Global History , join host Jeffrey Rosen . They explain how constitutions from around the world are intertwined with warfare, globalism and travel, writ...
Apr 09, 2021•58 min
In the midst of March Madness, the Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in NCAA v. Alston . The case is an antitrust challenge to the NCAA’s rules on compensation for athletes, brought by college basketball and football players including Shawne Alston, a former West Virginia University running back who argues that college athletes are being exploited. The NCAA argues that maintaining the amateur status of college athletes actually fosters consumer choice between amateur and professional sp...
Apr 01, 2021•53 min
On March 23, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid . Broadly, the case pits the rights of unions to communicate with workers who work and largely live on site versus the rights of business owners to keep people off of their private property. More specifically, the case asks whether California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which allows union organizers to be granted temporary access to speak to agricultural employees on worksites—which are largely private p...
Mar 26, 2021•51 min
In honor of Women’s History Month, this week we highlight women constitutional visionaries from landmark eras in our nation’s history—sharing the legendary contributions of women to the founding; the fight for abolition, the right to vote, and the 19th Amendment; the civil rights and equal rights movements; and more. Martha Jones, author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, and Lisa Tetrault, author of The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and t...
Mar 18, 2021•49 min
As the world reflects on the anniversaries of COVID-19 lockdowns this week, this episode recaps the variety of constitutional issues sparked by the pandemic. Joshua Matz—a lawyer and partner at Kaplan Hecker and Fink LLP who successfully defended a Kentucky coronavirus-related public health order before the U.S. Supreme Court—and Adam White, a professor at George Mason Law and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has studied COVID-19-related constitutional issues—join host Jeffrey Ro...
Mar 11, 2021•58 min
The Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in Lange v. California. The case asks whether a police officer violated the Fourth Amendment when he entered the garage of a person suspected of a misdemeanor crime without a warrant while in “hot pursuit” of him. Professor Jeffrey Fisher of Stanford University, who argued the case on behalf of Arthur Lange, and professor Donald Dripps of the University of San Diego Law School, a Fourth Amendment and criminal procedure expert, join host Jeffrey Rose...
Mar 05, 2021•55 min
On March 2, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee. The case centers on two of Arizona’s election rules: 1. Arizona does not count provisional ballots cast in person on Election Day outside of the voter’s designated precinct and 2. its ballot-collection law permits only certain persons (family and household members, caregivers, mail carriers, and elections officials) to handle another person’s completed early ballot. The DNC challenged the rules, ...
Feb 25, 2021•55 min
In commemoration of Black History Month, this week we’re sharing the courageous stories and legendary lives of African American constitutional visionaries throughout history—including well-known figures like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X, as well as some lesser-known but groundbreaking figures like Monroe Trotter and Pauli Murray. We highlight their fights to bring about constitutional change, from abolitio...
Feb 18, 2021•53 min
Did President Trump’s January 6 speech prior to the attack on the Capitol constitute the crime of incitement? Is it necessary to demonstrate that it did in order for the Senate to find him guilty of incitement as a high crime and misdemeanor under the Impeachment Clause and convict him? What are the relevant legal and constitutional standards? Catherine Ross, George Washington University Law School professor and author of the forthcoming book A Right to Lie? Presidents, Other Liars, and the Firs...
Feb 11, 2021•49 min
What are executive orders, and how has the Biden administration used them thus far? Presidential power experts Cristina Rodriguez, professor at Yale Law School and author of The President and Immigration Law, and Michael McConnell, professor at Stanford Law School and author of The President Who Would Not Be King, join host Jeffrey Rosen to answer those questions and more. They recap what they think are the most notable executive actions President Biden has taken in his first weeks in office, wh...
Feb 05, 2021•36 min
A mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, leading to a ricochet of effects including the impeachment of President Trump. On this episode, experts Larry Kramer, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Colleen Sheehan, Director of Graduate Studies at the Arizona State School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, explore the history of mobs past and present, online and in-person. They discuss how “good” versus “bad” mobs played a role at the Founding, and how concerns ...
Jan 28, 2021•56 min
Judge J. Michael Luttig, formerly of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Professor Keith Whittington of Princeton join host Jeffrey Rosen to consider how to interpret the constitutional text and historical precedent surrounding the question of whether the senate can hold President Trump’s impeachment trial now that he’s left office. Judge Luttig explains why he thinks that the president cannot be tried and convicted by the senate after he has already left office, and why only the Supreme Co...
Jan 22, 2021•1 hr 4 min
The House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump for a second time this week, with a vote of 232 in favor, 197 against, and 4 not voting. Prior to the vote, host Jeffrey Rosen sat down with two experts on the Constitution and presidential power—Cristina Rodriguez of Yale Law School and Michael McConnell of Stanford Law School. They shared their thoughts on the article of impeachment passed by the House; the charge against President Trump of incitement of insurrection in the wake of ...
Jan 14, 2021•44 min
In the early morning on January 7, 2021, Congress certified President-elect Biden’s Electoral College victory after a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol. This episode reflects on the historic and constitutional significance of the events of “a date which will live in constitutional history.” Host Jeffrey Rosen was joined by Judge J. Michael Luttig, formerly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of Berkeley Law. They discuss the president’s debunked c...
Jan 08, 2021•51 min
A panel of experts dives into what early American founding figures—including Thomas Jefferson, John and Abigail Adams, George Washington, Mercy Otis Warren, and Phyllis Wheatley—learned from the Greeks and Romans, from their early education through adulthood, and how that knowledge came to influence founding documents such as the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and the scope and shape of the American republic. They also explore the founders’ philosophical understanding of passion ve...
Dec 31, 2020•58 min
2020 was a tumultuous and eventful year—starting with the impeachment trial, and then the COVID-19 pandemic, crucial conversations about racial inequality, the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, as well as the 2020 presidential election and ensuing court battles over it. How did the Constitution, and American institutions, prevail throughout? John Yoo, a professor at Berkeley Law who previously served in the Bush administration’s ...
Dec 24, 2020•57 min
Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution says the president “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” This episode explores presidential pardons past and present—from Thomas Jefferson’s pardons of people convicted under the Sedition Act, through President Carter pardoning Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush pardoning those involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, to President Trump’s exercise of the pardon power today. ...
Dec 17, 2020•1 hr
In Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo (2020), the Supreme Court recently granted a preliminary injunction against (i.e. temporarily blocked) New York’s COVID-19 restrictions on attendance at houses of worship (pending further litigation), siding with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and two orthodox Jewish synagogues, who argued that the restrictions violated the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment. Constitutional law experts Michael Dorf of Cornell Law Sch...
Dec 11, 2020•1 hr 7 min
Can non-citizens be excluded from the census count, which serves as a basis of apportionment and allocates seats in the House of Representatives? Janai Nelson of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and John Eastman of Chapman University debate this question, which is at the heart of Trump v. New York, the 2020 census case that the Supreme Court heard on November 30. Jeffrey Rosen moderates. Questions or comments about the podcast? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org....
Dec 04, 2020•44 min
The National Constitution Center’s Constitution Drafting Project brought together three teams of leading constitutional scholars—team libertarian, team progressive, and team conservative—to draft and present their ideal constitutions. The leaders of each team—Caroline Frederickson of team progressive, Ilya Shapiro of team libertarian, and Ilan Wurman of team conservative—joined host Jeffrey Rosen to share the process behind their approach to drafting their constitutions and agreeing on what to i...
Nov 26, 2020•1 hr 12 min
A panel of experts from across the ideological spectrum joined National Constitution Center President Jeffrey Rosen on November 11 to consider what the 2020 election and its aftermath demonstrates about the political parties, polarization, and the state of American democracy today. They also explored how debates over what “truth” means have grown over the last four years, how that manifested in the election and its results, and where we’re headed next including the future of American values like...
Nov 19, 2020•58 min
This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in California v. Texas— a recent lawsuit bringing another challenge to the Affordable Care Act. In 2012, in NFIB v. Sebelius , the Supreme Court upheld the ACA as constitutional exercise of Congress’s taxing power; but Congress in 2017 eliminated the individual mandate which served as a basis for the tax rationale—and a group of states and individual plaintiffs sued to challenge the law’s validity once again. This episode recaps the arguments and...
Nov 13, 2020•58 min
On November 4, as the nation watched and waited for election results, the Supreme Court continued business as usual, hearing oral arguments in one of the term’s key cases— Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. This lawsuit was brought by Catholic Social Services (CSS), a foster-care organization that works with the city of Philadelphia to certify prospective foster parents. When the city found out that CSS, due it its religious beliefs, would not certify unmarried or same-sex married couples to be fos...
Nov 06, 2020•47 min
The Justice Department recently filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of illegally maintaining monopolies over search and search advertising. This week’s episode details the ins and outs of the lawsuit, the allegations the government makes against Google, and what all this might mean for similar companies like Apple and the future of Big Tech. To figure out how we got here, we also look to the history of antitrust, including what happened when a similar lawsuit was brought against...
Oct 29, 2020•1 hr
As the 2020 election quickly approaches, the Supreme Court issued two key rulings on state election laws this week—ruling 5-3 in Merill v. People First of Alabama to prevent counties from offering curbside voting in Alabama, and, in Pennsylvania Democratic Party v. Boockvar , upholding Pennsylvania’s extension of its mail-in ballot deadline by a 4-4 vote. This episode recaps those rulings, explores other key election-related cases before courts around the country, and explains the constitutional...
Oct 23, 2020•54 min
This week’s episode recaps the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, discussing what the hearings revealed about Judge Barrett’s career, her judicial philosophy, and her approach to stare decisis and constitutional interpretation including her views on originalism, and how, if confirmed, Justice Barrett might rule on legal questions including: the recent challenge to the Affordable Care Act, reproductive rights, presidential power, any disp...
Oct 16, 2020•55 min
In light of President Trump and numerous other high-ranking government officials recently contracting COVID-19, this week’s episode explores the 25th Amendment, which outlines what happens if the president becomes unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office. We explore questions related to current concerns including: should President Trump have invoked the 25th Amendment when he was in the hospital? And questions that have arisen throughout American history such as: What happens if a...
Oct 08, 2020•51 min
