Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 5 hours ago
Please join the Berkeley Law community for the annual Jorde Symposium featuring Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Berkeley School of Law, who will speak on “Against Constitutional Theory.”
For the last half century, many constitutional law professors and judges have engaged in a futile quest to develop a theory of constitutional law that constrains courts and that reconciles judicial review with democracy. No theory can succeed in these goals. The quest is destructive because it creates a false impression of constitutional decision-making and, in doing so asks the wrong questions while obscuring the right ones.
Lecturer
Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean & Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law
Commentators
Khiara M. Bridges, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law
Lawrence B. Solum, Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
This event is hosted by UC Berkeley Law in partnership with the California Law Review and the Brennan Center for Justice.
Please join the Berkeley Law community for the annual Jorde Symposium featuring Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Berkeley School of Law, who will speak on “Against Constitutional Theory.”
For the last half century, many constitutional law professors and judges have engaged in a futile quest to develop a theory of constitutional law that constrains courts and that reconciles judicial review with democracy. No theory can succeed in these goals. The quest is destructive because it creates a false impression of constitutional decision-making and, in doing so asks the wrong questions while obscuring the right ones.
Lecturer
Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean & Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law
Commentators
Khiara M. Bridges, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law
Lawrence B. Solum, Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
This event is hosted by UC Berkeley Law in partnership with the California Law Review and the Brennan Center for Justice.
