News & Events

Fall 2024 Student Fellows Programming:

Book Launch: A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist

Randy Barnett, Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law & Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution

Tuesday, September 10th | 12:15 pm | McDonough 140

Add the event to your Google Calendar here.

The Common Good

Matthew Mehan, Associate Dean & Assistant Professor of Government at Hillsdale College

Thursday, September 12th | 12:15 pm | McDonough 203

Add the event to your Google Calendar here.

The Administrative State and the Rule of Law

Michael Buschbacher, Partner at Boyden Gray PLLC

Tuesday, October 1st | 12:15 pm | McDonough 201

Add the event to your Google Calendar here.

American Covenant: How the Constitution Unifies Our Nation and Could Again

Yuval Levin, Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)

Tuesday, October 8th | 12:15 pm | McDonough 201

Add the event to your Google Calendar here.

Religious Freedom and the Administrative State

Roger Severino, Vice President of Domestic Policy & The Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Fellow at the Heritage Foundation

Thursday, November 14th | 12:15 pm | McDonough 203

Add the event to your Google Calendar here.

The Collective-Action Constitution

Neil Siegel, David W. Ichel Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Duke Law School

Thursday, November 21st | 12:15 pm | McDonough 203

Add the event to your Google Calendar here.

Professor Randy Barnett Releases Long-Awaited Memoir: July 2, 2024

Professor Randy Barnett’s memoir, “A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist” is now available for purchase. The book offers a deep dive into Barnett’s illustrious career and personal journey. “A Life for Liberty” is is more than just a reflection on Barnett’s professional achievements; it is a narrative of his unwavering dedication to the principles of liberty and justice.

Professor Stephanie Barclay Joins the Center as Faculty Co-Director: April 16, 2024

The Georgetown Center for the Constitution welcomes Professor Stephanie Barclay, currently a Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, to serve as faculty co-director alongside Professor Randy Barnett. She will join the Center and the Georgetown Law faculty in Fall of 2024. At Notre Dame, she is faculty director of the Religious Liberty Initiative, which promotes freedom of religion or belief for all people through advocacy, student formation and scholarship.

Ten Year Anniversary Gala: October 14, 2022

On Friday, October 14th the Georgetown Center for the Constitution hosted our Second Annual Gala at the National Archives. The evening featured the Thomas M. Cooley Judicial Lecture, co-sponsored by the Federalist Society, with Judge Don Willett of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The Center awarded the 2022 Thomas M. Cooley Book Prize of $50,000 to Professor Michael McConnell of Stanford University for his book, “The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power under the Constitution.”

Towards Nondelegation Doctrines: October 13, 2022

On Thursday, October 13, 2022 the Center co-hosted “Towards Nondelegation Doctrines” with the Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. The event featured a panel discussion with:

Chad Squitieri, Assistant Professor of Law, The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law
Christine Chabot, Distinguished Professor in Residence, Loyola University Chicago School of Law
The Honorable Trevor McFadden, United States District Court for the District of Columbia

A reception followed.

Eighth Annual Salmon P. Chase Distinguished Lecture

On November 17th, 2021 Dean William M. Treanor delivered the Eighth Annual Salmon P. Chase Distinguished Lecture commemorating the Constitutional Contributions of Gouverneur Morris. The Case of the Dishonest Scrivener: Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of the Federalist Constitution.

: Randy Barnett

: Paul Clement

: Audience

: Audience

: Dean William M. Treanor

: Professor Barnett and Dean Treanor

Eighth Annual Salmon P. Chase Faculty Colloquium

On Friday December 3rd we hosted the Eighth Annual Salmon P. Chase Faculty Colloquium. The newest cohort of Bradley Foundation fellows attended the colloquium.

2021 Thomas M. Cooley Symposium

On Friday, April 9th 2021, we hosted the 2021 Thomas M. Cooley Symposium discussing Professor Sean Wilentz’s book, No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding (Harvard University Press, 2018). The virtual conference featured robust discussion by over 20 law professors on the antislavery forces at the Constitutional Convention and throughout the 19th Century. We will award the Book Prize to Professor Wilentz this September at the National Archives.

Sixth Annual Salmon P. Chase Distinguished Lecture & Faculty Colloquium

On December 5th and 6th, 2019 we hosted the Sixth Annual Salmon P. Chase Distinguished Lecture & Faculty Colloquium commemorating the 200th Anniversary of McCulloch v. Maryland. The distinguished lecturer was Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law who gave a talk at the United States Supreme Court. In attendance to the lecture were members of the newest cohort of Student Fellows from the Georgetown University Law Center.

On December 6th, scholars came together to further discuss McCulloch v. Maryland in an all-day academic colloquium. The colloquium consisted of five sessions discussing papers by the following authors:

Alison LaCroix (Chicago)
Eric Lomazoff (Villanova)
Farah Peterson (Virginia)
David Schwartz (Wisconsin)
Kevin Walsh (Richmond)

We would like to give special thanks to the Supreme Court Historical Society for co-sponsoring this event.

Inaugural Thomas M. Cooley Judicial Lecture

On April 11, we hosted our inaugural Thomas M. Cooley Judicial Lecture with Judge Joan Larsen of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.Larsen’s lecture, “Respecting Local Control: State Law in the Federal System,” encouraged lawyers and judges to pay closer attention to state constitutional law, recounting her own experience as a justice on the Michigan Supreme Court and harkening back to Cooley’s advocacy for local control.

“State courts are too often treated in law schools and in elite legal circles as if they were the little siblings of their more sophisticated federal brethren,” she said. “But there can be no denying, even today, [that] the work of state courts matters.”

Expert criminal defense lawyer Jerome Buting talked to the Georgetown Law community in conversation with Professor Randy Barnett on Wednesday, February 27th. Buting shared some insight on new developments in Steven Avery’s case (featured in Netflix’s acclaimed series “Making a Murderer”), his path to becoming a criminal lawyer, criminal justice reform, and other topics.

The Center commemorated the 150th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Cooley’s Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations which Rest Upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union (1868) during its Fifth Annual Chase Faculty Colloquium at Georgetown Law on Saturday, December 1, 2018.

The colloquium consisted of four sessions discussing papers about substantive and interpretive issues raised by Constitutional Limitations by the following scholars:

Joseph Postell (Colorado) on the “reasonable regulation” of liberty from the founding to the 14th Amendment
Tara Helfman (Syracuse) on “Laissez-Faire constitutionalism”
Greg Klass (Georgetown) on the “interpretation-construction distinction” in private law
Larry Solum (Georgetown) on originalism and and the “interpretation-construction distinction” in public law

Redefining Originalism and the Law: Professor Lee Strang Gives a Sneak Peek into His Novel Theory

May 3, 2018

When he first began his academic teaching career, one of Professor Lee Strang’s (Toledo College of Law) first pieces of legal scholarship was an article on the original public meaning of the word “religion” in the Constitution. But while legal scholarship on religion has not necessarily seen an uptick, originalism definitely has, and Professor Strang’s forthcoming book: Originalism’s Promise and Limits: The Law As Coordination Account of Originalism will have something to do with that. Two years ago, Professor Strang began his term as a Visiting Scholar for the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, during which he completed the initial draft.

Georgetown Center for the Constitution Awards Cooley Book Prize to Princeton’s Sean Wilentz

July 31, 2020

The Georgetown Center for the Constitution announced it will award its fourth annual Thomas Cooley Book Prize of $50,000 to Professor Sean Wilentz of Princeton University for his book, No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding (Harvard University Press, 2018).

Visiting Scholar Tara Helfman on originalism, the Constitution and her new status at Georgetown

March 15, 2017

Of all the labels swirling around to describe Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch before his confirmation hearings beginning March 20th, patriotic is likely among them, according to Tara Helfman, who is on loan from Syracuse Law School while she works as a Georgetown Center for the Constitution Visiting Scholar.