Battle for the Constitution: Week of February 8th, 2021 Roundup

Below is a round-up of the latest from the Battle for the Constitution: a special project on the constitutional debates in American life, in partnership with The Atlantic.

How One Supreme Court Decision Increased Discrimination Against LGBTQ Couples

By Netta Barak-Corren, Associate Professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Netta Barak-Corren discusses an experiment she conducted before and after the Supreme Court’s Masterpiece Cakeshop case—which involved a baker’s ability to deny baking a cake for a same-sex wedding—that found the Court’s ruling in favor of the baker led to more discrimination against same-sex couples, and argues that this suggests the Court should be weary of granting exemptions to civil rights laws for religious reasons.

Freedom of Speech Doesn’t Mean What Trump’s Lawyers Want It to Mean

By Peter D. Keisler, Former Acting Attorney General, United States and Richard D. Bernstein, Appellate Lawyer

Peter D. Keisler and Richard D. Bernstein take apart Donald Trump’s lawyers’ defense that Trump cannot be impeached because his speech is protected by the First Amendment, and say that such a standard would lead to ludicrous and unacceptable situations.

January 6 Was Just One Day in a Sustained Campaign

By Richard H. Pildes, Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law

Richard H. Pildes argues that Donald Trump’s impeachment should not narrowly focus on the events of January 6, but on Trump’s attempts to delegitimize and overturn the results of the 2020 election for the months preceding the insurrection.