Our annual Supreme Court term review, hosted in partnership with ADL, recapped the landmark cases from this past term and previewed what’s to come next term. The panel featured Supreme Court experts Dahlia Lithwick, Erwin Chemerinsky, Paul Clement, and Frederick Lawrence. Karen Levit, National Civil Rights Counsel at ADL moderates, with opening remarks from National Constitution Center President Jeffrey Rosen.
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Erwin Chemerinsky became the 13th dean of Berkeley Law on July 1, 2017, when he joined the faculty as the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law. Prior to assuming this position, he was the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science. He also has taught at Duke University, the University of Southern California Law School, DePaul College of Law, and UCLA Law School. He is the author of 12 books, including his most recent, We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the 21st Century and the forthcoming The Religion Clauses: The Case for Separating Church and State (with Howard Gillman). He also is the author of more than 250 law review articles, a contributing writer for the opinion section of the Los Angeles Times, and writes a regular column for the Sacramento Bee, monthly columns for the ABA Journal and the Daily Journal, and frequent op-eds in newspapers across the country. He frequently argues appellate cases, including in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Paul Clement is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Clement served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General. He has argued over 100 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts. Clement clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights. Clement is a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, a Distinguished Lecturer in Government at Georgetown University, and Senior Fellow of the Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute
Frederick M. Lawrence is the 10th Secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and a distinguished lecturer at the Georgetown Law Center. He has previously served as president of Brandeis University, dean of the George Washington University Law School, and visiting professor and senior research scholar at Yale Law School. An accomplished scholar, teacher, and attorney, Lawrence is one of the nation’s leading experts on civil rights, free expression, and bias crimes. Lawrence has published widely and lectured internationally. He is the author of Punishing Hate: Bias Crimes Under American Law and frequently contributes op-eds to various news sources, such as Newsweek, The Boston Glove, the Observer, The Hill, the NY Daily News and The Huffington Post, and has appeared on CNN among other networks. Lawrence’s legal career was distinguished by service as an assistant U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York in the 1980s, where he became chief of the Civil Rights Unit.
Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate, and in that capacity, writes the “Supreme Court Dispatches” and “Jurisprudence” columns. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Commentary, among other places. She won a 2013 National Magazine Award for her columns on the Affordable Care Act. She has been twice awarded an Online Journalism Award for her legal commentary and was the first online journalist invited to be on the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press. Lithwick has testified before Congress about access to justice in the era of the Roberts Court. She has appeared on CNN, ABC, The Colbert Report, and is a frequent guest on The Rachel Maddow Show. She is currently working on a book about the four women justices of the United States Supreme Court.
Karen Levit is the National Civil Rights Counsel at ADL (Anti-Defamation League), a non-profit organization dedicated to combatting bigotry, prejudice, and antisemitism. In her role, Levit leads policy and drives advocacy on civil rights issues including voting rights; criminal justice; security and civil liberties; and immigration and refugee rights. She provides specialized strategic, legal, and legislative guidance to staff around the country on civil rights issues and advocates for policies that further ADL’s mission, including the need to secure justice and fair treatment to all. Prior to joining ADL, Karen served as a staff attorney in the Juvenile Rights Practice at the Legal Aid Society in New York.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
2020 Annual Supreme Court Review Written Materials and Resources
2020 Annual Supreme Court Review Supplemental Reading
DHS v. Regents of University of CA
Espinoza v. Montana Dep’t of Revenue
Little Sisters of the Poor v. PA
Our Lady of Guadalupe v. Morrissey-Berru
Comcast Corp. v. Nat’l Assoc. of African American-Owned Media
June Medical Services v. Russo
This episode was engineered by Jackie McDermott and Greg Scheckler and produced by Jackie McDermott, Tanaya Tauber, and Lana Ulrich.
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