Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Join Clay Jenkinson for a timely and in-depth conversation about the US Constitution in our modern world with constitutional scholars Beau Breslin and Sanford Levinson as part of the Conversations on Controversial Issues series as we mark the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.
In an earlier program, Jenkinson traced the origins and development of the U.S. Constitution and the ideas that shaped it. In this Symposium, we turn to the present...and the future. After more than two centuries of use, the Constitution continues to guide American governance, but it also shows signs of strain in a nation vastly different from the one that adopted it.
Drawing on extensive scholarship, Jenkinson will explore the Constitution’s structural vulnerabilities, the limits of the current amendment process, and the ongoing debate over whether meaningful reform is still possible within existing frameworks with Beau Breslin, a professor in Government at Skidmore College and Sanford Levinson, a renowned Constitutional Law professor at the University of Texas Law School. They will examine, in some depth, the most provocative alternative: the idea of a modern constitutional convention.
This program invites participants into a thoughtful, historically grounded discussion about constitutional endurance, democratic renewal, and what it might mean to take the framers’ own belief in constitutional adaptability seriously.
0:00 Introduction to the constitutional debate
0:45 Why the Constitution may be “undemocratic”
5:30 Jefferson’s argument for generational renewal
9:15 Why Americans revere the Constitution
13:20 Audience poll: reform, revision, or convention?
18:00 Article V and why amendments are nearly impossible
24:10 The Founders’ compromises and constitutional flaws
31:00 The 14th Amendment and Reconstruction
38:30 Is the Constitution broken?
45:00 Senate representation and democratic imbalance
51:20 Supreme Court term limits and judicial power
58:45 Electoral College, gerrymandering, and representation
1:08:00 Civic virtue and America’s weakened civic culture
1:17:00 What would trigger a constitutional convention?
1:25:30 War powers, executive authority, and crisis
1:31:00 Audience Q&A and Federalist Papers 2.0
1:38:00 Citizen juries and bottom-up constitutional change
1:45:00 Final reflections
#Constitution #AmericanDemocracy #SupremeCourt #CivicEngagement #PoliticalReform
Join Clay Jenkinson for a timely and in-depth conversation about the US Constitution in our modern world with constitutional scholars Beau Breslin and Sanford Levinson as part of the Conversations on Controversial Issues series as we mark the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.
In an earlier program, Jenkinson traced the origins and development of the U.S. Constitution and the ideas that shaped it. In this Symposium, we turn to the present...and the future. After more than two centuries of use, the Constitution continues to guide American governance, but it also shows signs of strain in a nation vastly different from the one that adopted it.
Drawing on extensive scholarship, Jenkinson will explore the Constitution’s structural vulnerabilities, the limits of the current amendment process, and the ongoing debate over whether meaningful reform is still possible within existing frameworks with Beau Breslin, a professor in Government at Skidmore College and Sanford Levinson, a renowned Constitutional Law professor at the University of Texas Law School. They will examine, in some depth, the most provocative alternative: the idea of a modern constitutional convention.
This program invites participants into a thoughtful, historically grounded discussion about constitutional endurance, democratic renewal, and what it might mean to take the framers’ own belief in constitutional adaptability seriously.
0:00 Introduction to the constitutional debate
0:45 Why the Constitution may be “undemocratic”
5:30 Jefferson’s argument for generational renewal
9:15 Why Americans revere the Constitution
13:20 Audience poll: reform, revision, or convention?
18:00 Article V and why amendments are nearly impossible
24:10 The Founders’ compromises and constitutional flaws
31:00 The 14th Amendment and Reconstruction
38:30 Is the Constitution broken?
45:00 Senate representation and democratic imbalance
51:20 Supreme Court term limits and judicial power
58:45 Electoral College, gerrymandering, and representation
1:08:00 Civic virtue and America’s weakened civic culture
1:17:00 What would trigger a constitutional convention?
1:25:30 War powers, executive authority, and crisis
1:31:00 Audience Q&A and Federalist Papers 2.0
1:38:00 Citizen juries and bottom-up constitutional change
1:45:00 Final reflections
#Constitution #AmericanDemocracy #SupremeCourt #CivicEngagement #PoliticalReform
