On Friday, August 12, Professor Candice Hoke will participate in the Republican National Lawyers Association’s Election Law Seminar in Cincinnati, Ohio.  The panel will address”Electoral Reform:  Registration and Ballots for Military, Overseas, Student and Other Voters.”  Professor Hoke will discuss, in particular, The Threats Posed by Internet Voting.

Professor David Forte

Professor David Forte has published Originalism in the Classroom in the current issue of Academic Questions.  In this article, Forte evaluates the way we have taught law in the twenty-five years since Attorney General Edwin Meese’s plea to return to “a Jurisprudence of Original Intention.”    Forte begins by looking at several US Supreme Court cases in the areas of church-state relations, 14th amendment Due Process, and abortion.  It is through these cases, he argues, that the Court reawakened ideas of originalism.  Following these cases, Forte writes, originalism became a legitimate and principled method of constitutional interpretation.  Following Meese’s speech, he asserts, originalism became the most principled form of constitutional analysis.

Forte next addresses the impact of originalism, arguing that substantial research has been done on the topic since the Court and Meese reintroduced and even championed it as a principled method of constitutional analysis.    That research has provided this generation of lawyers with a new and deeper outlook on the original meaning of the most significant clauses of the Constitution.  According to Forte, originalism and the research it engendered has changed the way attorneys argue cases in the Supreme Court and how the Justices decide them.

Forte delves into the role of originalism in the classroom by highlighting three major indicators of originalism’s reach and influence.  First, originalism now plays a major role in the cross-examination of federal judicial appointees, especially to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Second, the news media often opines on ‘originalism versus the living Constitution.’  Finally, presidential candidates are now all but obliged to discuss their judicial philosophy because it will influence their judicial appointments.  It is largely for these reasons, that originalism is due a prominent place in law school Constitutional Law classrooms.

Forte has performed a longitudinal analysis of the major Constitutional Law texts used in law schools.  This study revealed that although Constitutional Law texts have remained largely doctrinally focused, in the 1980s and 1990s, originalism gained more specific attention.  He directs much of his further attention to the six texts used more predominately at the top 50 ranked law schools, evaluating the degree to which they present originalism, and the method they use to do so.  He also surveyed a Constitutional Law professors listserve and learned that as in other disciplines coverage of originalism is limited by time, and of course, the interest of the professor.  He concludes that whereas some Constitutional Law professors praise originalism and others ridicule it, originalism is alive and well in American Constitutional Law classrooms.

You can view Professor Forte’s article at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/3j78557702021431/

C|M|LAW Assistant Dean Louise P. Dempsey was recently reappointed to her post of Vice President of the Board of Education by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson.

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson’s article Public Access to Private Land for Walking: Environmental and Individual Responsibility as Rationale for Limiting the Right to Exclude was recently listed on 4 of SSRN’s Top Ten download lists.  It was listed in the top ten for ERN: Natural Resources.  It was also on the Top Ten download list for European Economics: Agriculture, Natural Resources & Environmental Studies eJournal.    It was a Top Ten download in Property, Citizenship, & Social Entrepreneurism.  Finally, it was on the Top Ten download list for SSRN’s International Environmental Law eJournal.  You can access this article via SSRN at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1874046

On June 22, Professor Kevin F. O’Neill taught a two-hour evidence seminar at Case Western Reserve University School of Law as part of the 2011 Stephanie Tubbs Jones Summer Legal Academy.  The Academy, now in its sixth year, is an annual program, co-sponsored by C|M|LAW, designed to encourage minority high school students to pursue a career in the law.