The Stanford Constitutional Law Center, founded in September 2006 by former dean Kathleen M. Sullivan and Derek Shaffer '00, grows out of the long and distinguished tradition of constitutional law scholarship at Stanford Law School. The Center seeks to carry on that tradition in a variety of ways—academic conferences, public lectures, policy research projects, and pro bono litigation—aimed at gathering consensus and advancing constitutional norms both domestically and internationally. Stanford law students, particularly those enrolled in a Constitutional Law Workshop, are intimately involved in all of the Center's activities.
Since its inception, the Center has been actively contributing to constitutional litigation in our nation's courts, with special emphasis upon individuals' speech and privacy rights and the structural separation of powers within our system of government. The Center has also sponsored a variety of conferences, lectures, and other events gathering experts from around the world to address issues ranging from constitutional reform and the formation of new constitutions, to developments affecting voting rights in our democracy, to the interplay between national security and civil liberties.
Kathleen Sullivan is the Center's Director, shaping its agenda and overseeing all aspects of its operations, including the Constitutional Law Workshop for students. A nationally prominent scholar and teacher of constitutional law, she previously served as Stanford Law School's Dean and presently is its Stanley Morrison Professor of Law.
The Center runs four interrelated programs, each aimed at promoting constitutional inquiry and understanding, particularly within the Center's substantive areas of focus. The Center is led by Director Kathleen M. Sullivan.
The Center sponsors and hosts a variety of conferences, symposia, and speakers in order to promote constitutional discussion and debate within Stanford Law School and beyond. These are reflected in its schedule of past and upcoming events, as regularly updated.
The Center pursues academic research through Fellows who are appointed annually. The Center's inaugural Fellow, Laura Donohue (SLS 2006), is studying anti-terrorism initiatives in the United States and United Kingdom and their consequences for individual liberty, privacy, and property rights.
The Center contributes to the process of constitutional adjudication by assisting in litigation in the nation's courts at both the trial and the appellate level, in both the Federal and State systems. The Center is prepared to do so through its own staff and resources, and also in concert with other advocates whose efforts might specially benefit from the Center's expertise in constitutional analysis. Cases in which the Center is involved are listed here, as regularly updated.
At the intersection of the Center's programs is a student workshop. Here, law students work in close concert with the Center's staff during the academic year to support, sustain, and shape the Center's efforts by preparing research papers as well as working on actual cases in which the Center is involved.
Students working under the supervision of relevant faculty (typically in teams of three as part of a constitutional law workshop) are integrally involved in the Center's litigation efforts. Each of the submissions below reflects the work of the relevant student team at every phase of development, including drafting.
The Center regularly identifies debates over important constitutional issues, and it collects and organizes various contributions to those debates for ease of public reference. These are set out below and updated on an ongoing basis. If you have or know of a salient contribution that you believe should be added, please alert the Center's Administrative Director.