The Courts and the Culture Wars: Judicial Politics in Polarized Times

Featuring Professor Thomas Keck
Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics

Wednesday, March 16, 2011
5:30 p.m. Reception
6:30 p.m. Program

Carnegie Institution for Science
1530 P Street, NW, Washington, D.C.

Why do judges seem to play an outsized role in polarized political conflicts in today's United States? Partisan critics would say judges are unaccountable activists, blithely substituting their own preferences for those of popular majorities. But judges insist they are merely legal “umpires,” dispassionately calling balls and strikes with no concern for who wins and loses.

Arguing that neither of these descriptions is remotely accurate, Professor Thomas Keck will focus on four of the most polarized issues in constitutional politics—abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, and gun rights—to provide a guided tour through contemporary debates about the role of judges in American democracy.

Space is limited—R.S.V.P. today!

Space is limited and reservations are required. R.S.V.P. online or call 315.443.5453 no later than Tuesday, March 8. Please include your name, title, organization, and phone number. You are welcome to bring a guest.

maxwell.syr.edu

Thomas M. Keck
Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics

Professor Keck's research focuses on the U.S. Supreme Court, American constitutional development, and the use of legal strategies by movements for social change. He is the author of The Most Activist Supreme Court in History: The Road to Modern Judicial Conservatism, which was published to wide acclaim in 2004.

His work also has appeared in the American Political Science Review and Law and Society Review, and he is currently writing a book that examines the impact and independence of American courts in the context of the contemporary culture wars. Keck received a Ph.D. degree in political science from Rutgers University in 1999.