ACS Project
The ACS emailed the following:
- ACS Launches Constitution in the 21st Century Project
The American Constitution Society (“ACS”) is embarking on a multi-year initiative to promote positive, much-needed change in our legal and policy landscape. The Constitution in the 21st Century will advance our nation’s commitment to a constitutional democracy that safeguards individual rights and liberties, genuine equality and access to justice. With an Advisory Board co-chaired by Walter Dellinger, Alan Jenkins and Dawn Johnsen,* the project will bring together, in various venues and combinations, constitutional scholars, hands-on practitioners, public interest advocates, public officials and law students. We will encourage the kind of deep, careful thinking necessary to formulate and advance a progressive constitutional vision that is intellectually sound, practically relevant, and faithful to our constitutional values and heritage.
Over the past two decades, our nation’s legal landscape has been significantly reshaped by conservative legal ideology hostile to fundamental liberties and equality, congressional authority and responsibility, and access to the courts for the vindication of rights. Through a concerted campaign by conservative politicians, academics and activists, that ideology has permeated popular discourse and translated into real legal and political change.
The time is right to reclaim our Constitution and ACS is launching The Constitution in the 21st Century initiative expressly for that purpose. Through the project, ACS members will:
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develop and disseminate progressive interpretations on a wide range of issues;
debunk constitutional rationales that use misleading or disingenuous interpretations to mask conservative policy objectives;
devise and implement strategies for shaping constitutional debate and constitutional law along progressive lines; and
mobilize diverse constituencies on behalf of this vision: academics, practicing lawyers, public interest advocates, judges, government policymakers and law students, as well as citizens whose constitutional understandings help determine the constitutional democracy in which we live.
The project’s intellectual content will include both foundational intellectual work and persuasive distillations of existing work made readily accessible to practitioners, policymakers and the public. Components of the project will include:
Issue Groups: The project’s working core will consist of nationwide ACS Issue Groups of lawyers and academics working in particular subject areas. The Issue Groups will focus on topical concerns of the day as well as more enduring matters, and will both challenge flawed premises at work in the law and demonstrate the legitimacy and power of progressive approaches. Initial topics are likely to include separation of powers and federalism, equality and liberty, the criminal justice system, access to justice, constitutional interpretation and change, and democracy and voting.
Conferences and Other Events: The project will include a variety of conferences and other events through which individuals will develop and share constitutional theories and arguments. Already scheduled are a Yale-ACS Conference on The Constitution in 2020 in April 2005 and the annual ACS National Convention in July 2005, which will be devoted to The Constitution in the 21st Century. Issue Groups will host additional public symposia as well as working meetings.
Publications: The project will publish original articles, essays and position papers by a variety of authors on legal and policy issues suitable for audiences ranging from legal scholars to practitioners to interested citizens. The project will also compile, summarize and synthesize key academic and specialized articles and other existing materials to make them more accessible and useful to lawyers, litigators and advocates. We also will encourage students to engage in progressive scholarship,
including through an annual writing competition.
Project Website: A special section of the ACS website will be devoted to the project as a central tool for encouraging on-going dialogue, inspiring new ideas and continuously refining our constitutional vision for the 21st Century. The website will disseminate the work of the project, including all its publications, information regarding upcoming project activities, links to relevant material and activities of other organizations, a clearinghouse of progressive materials and a project blog.
Project Clearinghouse: To fill a void often voiced by the progressive legal community, the project will establish and maintain a clearinghouse that will bring together a wide variety of key relevant materials, including law review articles, court rulings, project publications, congressional testimony and book reviews. In addition to including the full text of these materials, the clearinghouse will analyze, summarize and organize the materials to maximize their accessibility and usefulness to practitioners, judges, advocates, academics and students.
Blog: The project will include a blog that engages progressives in conversation about theories of constitutional interpretation, topical issues and strategies for furthering progressive constitutionalism.
Through The Constitution in the 21st Century, ACS seeks ultimately to revitalize our great nation’s commitment to liberty, equality and justice and our standing as a beacon of freedom and justice across the world.
*Walter Dellinger is the Douglas B. Maggs Professor of Law at Duke Law School, a Partner with O’Melveny & Myers and former Acting Solicitor General and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. Alan Jenkins is Executive Director of The Opportunity Agenda, former Director of the Human Rights Unit at the Ford Foundation, former Assistant to the Solicitor General in U.S. Department of Justice and former Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Dawn Johnsen is a Professor of Law at Indiana University School of Law- Bloomington, former Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice and former Legal Director for NARAL Pro-Choice America.