Bissel-Heyd Symposium: "American Constitutionalism in Crisis?"

As the United States hurtles towards the 2024 presidential election, the integrity of its constitutional system faces serious questions. The last several years alone have brought both jurisprudential revolution and legislative gridlock; democratic backsliding and enervated governance; deepening partisan division and disappearing common ground; an attempted insurrection and protracted efforts to hold those responsible to account. In turn, these challenges have fuelled a range of proposed solutions, from disempowering the Supreme Court and bolstering electoral democracy to retrenching national power and reviving an assertive federalism. Against this fraught backdrop, the 2024 Bissell-Heyd Symposium will probe the question raised by these developments: Is American constitutionalism in crisis? Engaging this topic requires clarifying what crisis entails, as well as identifying both past cases and present causes of constitutional infirmity. Animated by the conviction that such questions are best answered by situating contemporary American constitutional politics within both historical and comparative context, the symposium will feature three keynote speakers: Maggie Blackhawk (New York University Law School), Jonathan Gienapp (Stanford University), and Rogers Smith (University of Pennsylvania). These addresses will be complemented by a series of thematic panels probing the meaning, history, and dimensions of constitutional crisis.