MEDIA CONTACT: Pat Vaughan Tremmel at (847) 491-4892 or p-tremmel@northwestern.edu

March 30, 2004

Scholars to Discuss Rehnquist Court

CHICAGO --- Legal scholars and practitioners from law schools across the country will gather at Northwestern University School of Law to discuss the tenure of the Rehnquist Court, which marks its 16th anniversary this year.

The Faculty Research Conference , titled “The Rehnquist Court,” will take place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, April 23, and from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 24, at the School of Law, 357 East Chicago Ave. The conference is free and open to the public.

“During its tenure, the Rehnquist Court has staked out new ground in areas including federalism, free speech and the religion clauses, the Fourteenth Amendment and, substantive due process,” said John O. McGinnis, professor of law and organizer of the conference. “Many of its justices also have embraced distinctive theories of administrative law and statutory interpretation.”

The court has also coincided with the rise of positive political theory in the legal academy, says McGinnis. Some scholars have argued that decisions of the court can be understood with reference only to other branches of government , while others say that the Rehnquist Court, like the Warren Court of the ‘60s, is moving towards a distinctive jurisprudence, such as sustaining a structure for the creation of decentralized social norms or restricting the scope of antidiscrimination principles.

Conference attendees will examine these developments and hear scholar presentations on the courts prominent legal doctrines as well as participate in a roundtable discussion addressing these crosscutting themes.

“The Rehnquist Court” is the sixth conference in the Northwestern University School of Law Faculty Conference Series. The series was inaugurated in 1998 and is organized each year by faculty members to bring together leading authorities in a public forum to present research and discuss important academic and public policy issues.

This event is sponsored by the Professor Irving Gordon Symposia Fund, established in 1996 to honor the memory of Irving Gordon, a graduate of the class of 1947 and member of the Northwestern University School of Law faculty from 1966 until his death in 1994.