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. |