Sometimes, it takes a troll to make a point. It can certainly get people thinking, anyway. Harvard Law professor Adrian Vermeule’s most recent essays are a case in point. For better or worse, “originalism,” or the idea that the United States Constitution should be interpreted in light of its meaning when it was ratified, is [...]
Americans love to pretend that the Constitution is a legal document. Of course, it’s nothing of the sort. At best, it’s a restatement of an imaginary common ideology, a Rorschach card onto which we project our vision of the ideal legal order. The Constitution enables us to resolve political problems by magically transforming them into [...]
Everything old is new again, and court-packing is no exception. In 1937, faced with a conservative Supreme Court that consistently invalidated his New Deal legislation, President Roosevelt announced a plan to increase the size of the court and add justices who would rule in his favor. It was a bridge too far. While Roosevelt’s plan [...]
When John Okada wrote “No-No Boy” in 1957, no one cared. An obscure novel published by a Japanese press, it told the story of a Japanese-American man who chose to resist the draft and go to prison, rather than fight for a country that had forced his family and friends into concentration camps. But today, [...]
