Abstract
The American constitutional order is in a state of flux, caused in part by the Supreme Court and its embrace of originalism. The originalist ideology contends that the Constitution has one true historically discoverable meaning, and interpreters must understand the document today the same way the public purportedly understood it when it was enacted. While its advocates insist that originalism promotes objectivity and democratic legitimacy, closer examination reveals that it is little more than a political tool designed to entrench 18th-century power hierarchies by transforming some of the nation’s lowest historical shortcomings into its highest legal standards. The author argues that originalism is incompatible with the multiracial democracy the Constitution demands, and proposes an alternative legal interpretive framework called inclusive constitutionalism. The future of constitutional interpretation should not focus on a point in time; it should focus on the liberatory principles of the Reconstruction Amendments, and the achievement of a real, inclusive democracy.
Recommended Citation
Madiba K. Dennie,
Keynote Address: The Future of Constitutional Interpretation,
69
St. Louis U. L.J.
(2025).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol69/iss4/3