The Supreme Court from America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance

The Supreme Court is a cornerstone of the American governance infrastructure as well as a traditional guardian of rule of law. This webinar is inspired by Richard Re’s essay “A Court of Two Crises,” in which he describes a Court beleaguered by the aggressive legal claims of the Trump administration, and the public perception that the Court is making political rather than legal decisions. Notwithstanding these crises, he argues that weakening the Court and the federal judiciary might create an even deeper crisis of rule of law. Webinar participants will explore the Court’s trajectory and options as it faces the current governance moment and the battle over its legitimacy.

Moderator
Fred Smith, Chair of Federal Courts Section, Stanford Law School

Speakers
Richard Re, Harvard Law School
Tara Grove, University of Texas at Austin School of Law

Register for the Zoom Event

This event is part of a series from The Association of American Law Schools on foundational themes explored in the book America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance (MIT Press, 2026). Edited by Alexandra Natapoff (Lee S. Kreindler Professor of Law) and Guy-Uriel Charles (Charles Ogletree, Jr. Professor of Law), the book assembles short essays from over 60 members of the Harvard Law School faculty, written from the perspectives of their many diverse fields, analyzing the issues facing our country’s bold experiment in democratic governance at this important milestone in American history.