In the Hindu tradition of guru-śisya, a śisya (student) must offer something to his guru (teacher). Professor Akhil Reed Amar has been a guru to me, both an esteemed teacher and a wise counselor. Since there can be no better tribute to a professor than to use the knowledge, tools, and skills he imparted as a basis for analyzing his work, in this Article I offer a short and vigorous critique of Professor Amar’s latest work, America’s Unwritten Constitution. I make four brief points. First, America’s Unwritten Constitution reflects the mellowing of Professor Amar. Second, the book’s arguments are in tension with his previous work. Third, I question the driving force behind Professor Amar’s arguments and ask whether modern Supreme Court doctrine is in the driver seat. Finally, I examine how it was possible for the Warren Court to get so much so right with such misguided reasoning.
For the over half-million people currently homeless in the United States, the U.S. Constitution has historically provided little help: it is strongly...
Gradualism should have won out in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, exerting gravitational influence on the majority and dissenters alike. In general...
Today, legal culture is shaped by One Big Question: should courts, particularly the US Supreme Court, have a lot of power? This question is affecting...
Constitutional review is the power of a body, usually a court, to assess whether law or government action complies with the constitution. Originating...
During times of crisis, governments often consider policies that may promote safety, but that would require overstepping constitutionally protected...
The United States has granted reparations for a variety of historical injustices, from imprisonment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War...
This Article develops a new way of understanding the law in order to address contemporary debates about judicial practice and reform. The...
In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, Justice Thomas’s majority opinion announced that the key to applying originalist methodology...
In Poland, Venezuela, Rwanda, and several other countries, governments have in the past years altered basic rules of their constitutional system to...
In Chile, many commentators, academics and political leaders have spent years arguing that the limited nature of the social rights in the national...
In our increasingly polarized society, claims that prosecutions are politically motivated, racially motivated, or just plain arbitrary are more common...
When federal judges are called on to adjudicate separation-of-powers disputes, they are not mere arbiters of the separation of powers. By resolving a...
Gender equality matters in the global public law academy for at least three reasons: the production of diverse scholarship, and substantive equality...
Ethnographic approaches are not as widely practiced among constitutional scholars as they probably should be. Some may harbor perfectly reasonable...
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court distinguished between different kinds of reliance interests — some that would...