Skip to main content
Search
Cart 0
0

User account menu

  • Sign In

Main navigation

Sign In
  • About us
    • About ALI Overview
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Governance
      • Governance
      • Officers
      • Council
      • Committees
        • Committees
        • Standing Committees
        • Special Committees
        • Joint Committees
    • Awards
      • Awards
      • Henry J. Friendly Medal
      • John Minor Wisdom Award
      • Distinguished Service Award
      • Reporter's Chairs
      • Early Career Scholars Medal
    • Contact Us
      • Contact Us
      • ALI Staff
      • Employment Opportunites
    • ALI CLE
    • Video Library
  • Publications
    • All Publications
    • Get Email Updates
    • Trial Manual Electronic Publication
    • Style Manual
    • Reprint Permission
    • Publications FAQ
    • Customer Service
  • Projects
    • All Projects
    • Project Life Cycle
    • Style Manual
  • Meetings
    • All Meetings
    • Health and Safety
  • Members
    • Members Overview
    • About Our Members
      • About Our Members
      • In Memoriam
      • Regional Advisory Groups
      • Milestones
      • Newly Elected Members
    • Member Directory
    • Make a Gift
    • Membership FAQ
  • Giving
    • Giving Overview
    • Annual Fund
    • 100 for 100
    • Member Giving Circles
    • Life Member Class Gift
      • Life Member Class Gift
      • 2000 Life Member Class Gift
      • 1999 Life Member Class Gift
    • Sustaining Members
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
    • Law Firm Giving
    • Fundraising Disclosure Statement
    • Contact Us
  • News
    • News
    • Quarterly Newsletter
    • Podcast
    • Press Releases
    • Video Library
    • Annual Reports
    • ALI In the Courts
    • ALI CLE Programs
Donate
  1. Home
  2. News
  3. How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart
Home How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart
  1. News
Member News

How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart

April 20, 2021
Image Book-Greene-Jamal (1).jpg

In his new book, Jamal Greene of Columbia Law School reveals how our approach to rights is dividing America, and shows how we can build a better system of justice. 

From the publisher:  

Rights are a sacred part of American identity. Yet they also are the source of some of our greatest divisions. We believe that holding a right means getting a judge to let us do whatever the right protects. And judges, for their part, seem unable to imagine two rights coexisting—reducing the law to winners and losers. The resulting system of legal absolutism distorts our law, debases our politics, and exacerbates our differences rather than helping to bridge them. 

 As renowned legal scholar Jamal Greene argues, we need a different approach—and in How Rights Went Wrong, he proposes one that the Founders would have approved. They preferred to leave rights to legislatures and juries, not judges, he explains. Only because of the Founders’ original sin of racial discrimination—and subsequent missteps by the Supreme Court—did courts gain such outsized power over Americans’ rights. In this paradigm-shifting account, Greene forces readers to rethink the relationship between constitutional law and political dysfunction and shows how we can recover America’s original vision of rights, while updating them to confront the challenges of the twenty-first century. 

On April 29 (5:00 PM Pacific Time/8:00 PM Eastern Time) the Stanford Constitutional Law Center is hosting a Publius Symposium to discuss Greene’s book. 

The virtual discussion will include commentary by Nadine Strossen, Jud Campbell, and Geoffrey Siaglet. 

Registration is free for this event. 

More News

See All

Erik Knutsen Unpacks Insurance Law’s Broad Reach

Nanette Jolivette Brown Inducted into Tulane Law Hall of Fame

Judy Perry Martinez to Receive 2025 American Inns of Court James E. Coleman Jr. Award for Professionalism in the Fifth Circuit

Address

4025 Chestnut Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19104

215-243-1600

Footer

  • Privacy Policy
    Terms of Use
Donate

© Copyright 2024. All Rights Reserved.