Richard J. Childress Memorial Lecture

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  2024--The Future of Constitutional Interpretation

  Madiba K. Dennie, Yvette Butler, Travis Crum, Daniel Kiel, Marcia McCormick, Juan Perea, Francesca Procaccini, Allen Rostron, Steven Schwinn, and Anders Walker

  The 2024 Childress Lecture will explore the future of U.S. constitutional interpretation with a presentation by keynote speaker Madiba Dennie, author of The Originalism Trap, as well as several presentations by other renowned constitutional scholars.

  Courts often must ascertain the meaning of a constitutional provision before applying it to the facts of a case. In addition, the text of the Constitution is silent on fundamental questions of constitutional law, including questions that its drafters could not have foreseen. There is significant debate over which sources and methods courts should use in exercising the power of judicial review. This year’s Childress Lecture speakers will discuss and debate various methods of constitutional interpretation, including history and principles of constitutional interpretation, textualism, originalism, structuralism, pragmatism, and more.

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  2023--Progressive Constitutionalism and Its Libertarian Discontents: The Case of LGBTQ Rights

  Carlos Ball, Craig Konnoth, Linda McClain, Tobias Barrington Wolff, Luke Boso, Jeremiah Ho, Anthony Michael Kreis, Elizabeth W. Sepper, Kelly Gillespie, Susan Hazeldean, and Kyle Velte

  This year’s Childress Lecture, led by Professor Carlos Ball, will explore the ways in which libertarian political morality and constitutionalism create a double-edged sword for progressives. On the one hand, libertarian principles have helped advance some progressive objectives inside and outside of the courts, including several related to LGBTQ rights. On the other hand, abiding by those principles as a matter of constitutional law has served to jeopardize a slew of broader progressive objectives. The program will also explore LGBTQ+ rights and constitutional theory, the connection between LGBTQ+ rights and the First Amendment, and transgender rights.

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  2022 Keynote Speaker --The Business of the Supreme Court: The Evolution and Devolution of the Supreme Court's Docket

  Stephen Vladeck

  This year’s annual Childress Lecture, to be delivered by University of Texas School of Law Professor Stephen Vladeck, will provide both a historical introduction to and a modern reassessment of the shape and size of the Supreme Court’s docket — and will argue that both academic and public discourse about the work of the Court has increasingly failed to account for holistic shifts in the kinds of cases that the Justices are (and aren’t) choosing to decide. A proper accounting of the ‘Business of the Supreme Court,’ Professor Vladeck will argue, helps to show just how significantly the Court’s role in our legal system has changed in recent years — without almost anyone noticing.

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  2022 Panel 1: Intricacies of the Court

  Morgan Hazelton, Ben Johnson, and Tejas Narechania

  This year’s annual Childress Lecture, to be delivered by University of Texas School of Law Professor Stephen Vladeck, will provide both a historical introduction to and a modern reassessment of the shape and size of the Supreme Court’s docket — and will argue that both academic and public discourse about the work of the Court has increasingly failed to account for holistic shifts in the kinds of cases that the Justices are (and aren’t) choosing to decide. A proper accounting of the ‘Business of the Supreme Court,’ Professor Vladeck will argue, helps to show just how significantly the Court’s role in our legal system has changed in recent years — without almost anyone noticing.

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  2022 Panel 2--Interrelationships of the Court

  Josh Chafetz, Daniel Epps, and Jennifer Moscott

  This year’s annual Childress Lecture, to be delivered by University of Texas School of Law Professor Stephen Vladeck, will provide both a historical introduction to and a modern reassessment of the shape and size of the Supreme Court’s docket — and will argue that both academic and public discourse about the work of the Court has increasingly failed to account for holistic shifts in the kinds of cases that the Justices are (and aren’t) choosing to decide. A proper accounting of the ‘Business of the Supreme Court,’ Professor Vladeck will argue, helps to show just how significantly the Court’s role in our legal system has changed in recent years — without almost anyone noticing.

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  2022 Panel 3--Covering the Court

  Ariane de Vogue, Amy Howe, and Kate Shaw

  This year’s annual Childress Lecture, to be delivered by University of Texas School of Law Professor Stephen Vladeck, will provide both a historical introduction to and a modern reassessment of the shape and size of the Supreme Court’s docket — and will argue that both academic and public discourse about the work of the Court has increasingly failed to account for holistic shifts in the kinds of cases that the Justices are (and aren’t) choosing to decide. A proper accounting of the ‘Business of the Supreme Court,’ Professor Vladeck will argue, helps to show just how significantly the Court’s role in our legal system has changed in recent years — without almost anyone noticing.

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  2021: Critical Race Theory and the Law

  Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Danielle Conway, Mario Barnes, Christopher Tinson, Ngozi Okidegbe, Anthony Farley, and David Niven

  The Richard J. Childress Memorial Lecture, named in honor of former Dean Richard J. Childress (1969-1976), is a premier academic event highlighting a provocative and timely area of law. The lecture commemorates the contributions Dean Childress made academically, ethically, and socially to benefit the Saint Louis University School of Law.

  Dean Childress was a member of the faculty at the School of Law for almost 30 years, and then served for 15 years as associate dean and dean. Among other achievements, Dean Childress is credited with founding the Saint Louis University Law Journal.

  Every year, the Journal sponsors the Lecture and publishes the keynote address on a timely legal topic as well as responses from the lecture’s scholarly participants.

  Established by the generosity of alumni and friends of the former dean, the lecture aims to enhance the exemplary teaching at the School of Law by bringing world-renowned scholars to campus for academic enrichment.

  This year's annual Childress Lecture, in cooperation with the Saint Louis University Department of African American Studies, will examine critical race theory, which seeks to critically examine American law as it intersects with issues of race and other social constructs in the United States.