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Text and history were front and center in many controversial and consequential Supreme Court opinions last term, and will be pivotal in the Roberts Court’s evolving jurisprudence. This emphasis reinvigorates and reshapes fundamental questions that have dominated methodological and substantive debates about constitutional interpretation over the past half century. Through our Spring Conference, the Stanford Constitutional Law Center will bring together scholars and practitioners to interrogate these questions. How is the Court using text and history, and how should it? What are the ramifications of the Court’s use of these methods for other modes of constitutional interpretation? Substantively, what does the Court’s approach mean for free speech, free exercise, gun rights, and equal protection? What is the future and stakes of these methodological and substantive debates, both for the academy and appellate practice?

Sponsored by the Stanford Constitutional Law Center

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