 David Strauss |
The Constitutional Law Center at Drake University Law School will hold a symposium on the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and a public lecture on individual rights.
The annual Constitutional Law Symposium, titled “Debating The Living Constitution,” will be held on Saturday, April 2, from 8 to 11:30 a.m. in Cartwright Hall, 27th Street and Carpenter Avenue. Registration will take place from 8 to 8:30 a.m.
Registration is $10 per person, which covers the symposium and a continental breakfast. Advance registration is available online or by calling 515-271-2988. Admittance is free to Drake students, faculty, staff and alumni, as well as Belin-McCormick law firm affiliates. This tenth anniversary symposium is made possible by support from Belin McCormick.
The symposium will focus on whether the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted as a living document or whether it should be strictly interpreted according to original intent.
The issue is the subject of a book by David Strauss, the Gerald Ratner distinguished service professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School. The book, titled “The Living Constitution,” argues that the Constitution should be interpreted as a living document using the techniques of the common law.
Strauss will debate the issue with other legal experts, including:
• Keith Whittington, the William Nelson Cromwell professor of politics at Princeton University
• Rebecca Brown, the Newton professor of constitutional law at the University of Southern California School of Law
• Wil Waluchow, the Senator William McMaster chair in constitutional studies at McMaster University
The Constitutional Law Symposium is an annual event in which a prominent array of constitutional scholars, civil libertarians, policy analysts, lawyers and judges gather to explore a timely constitutional issue. The proceedings are published in the Drake Law Review.
 Rebecca Zietlow |
Lecture on constitutional law to focus on protection of individual rights
On Thursday, April 7, the Constitutional Law Center will host an event as part of its Distinguished Lecture Series. Rebecca Zietlow, a visiting professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, will discuss “Congress and Belonging: Protecting Individual Rights.” The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 3 p.m. in room 213 of Cartwright Hall.
Zietlow is the Charles W. Fornoff professor of law and values at the University of Toledo College of Law. Prior to joining the faculty at Toledo Law, she clerked for U.S. District Court Judge John F. Grady in the Northern District of Illinois, and worked as a staff attorney for four years at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College and a law degree from Yale Law School.
Her publications focus on the Reconstruction Era and congressional enforcement of civil rights. She is the author of “Enforcing Equality: Congress, the Constitution, and the Protection of Individual Rights.” In addition, her recent publications include “Free At Last! Anti-Subordination and the Thirteenth Amendment” in the Boston University Law Review and “The Rights of Citizenship: Two Framers, Two Amendments” in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law.