Ralph Rossum, director of the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at CMC and the Henry Salvatori Professor of Political Philosophy and American Constitutionalism, will discuss "Antonin Scalia's Jurisprudence: Text and Tradition" during a lecture at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum on Wednesday, Feb. 1. The public portion of the program begins at 6:45 p.m.; seating is free, on a first-come basis.
Rossum's address is titled after his recently published book of the same name (University Press of Kansas, 2006), exploring Scalia's textualist approach to such key structural arrangements as separation of powers and federalism, and to key constitutional provisions including the free speech, press, and religious clauses of the First Amendment. As covered in the Jan. 31 issue of the Wall Street Journal the newspaper states how, "Ralph Rossum captures the qualities that have made Justice Scalia's ideas such a formidable and, to some, terrifying force.
"Mr. Rossum," the article notes, "takes pains to show that Justice Scalia's jurisprudence is not simply a cover for conservative ideology. In a variety of cases, particularly in the area of criminal procedure, Justice Scalia has reached results pleasing to political liberals."
Rossum, who team-taught a course on the American Founding with Justice Scalia at the University of Aix-Marseille Law School in 1987, is the author or coauthor of nine books including American Constitutional Law, and more than 65 book chapters and articles in law reviews and professional journals. In 2002, he was appointed by Secretary of Education Rod Paige as a member of the National Board of the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) in the U.S. Department of Education, and also serves as chairman of the Council of Scholars. Additionally, Rossum is a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Academy of Liberal Education and serves as a consulting editor of Current as well as Perspectives on Political Science.
Rossum received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and his areas of academic expertise include constitutional law, the American founding, and criminal justice and procedure.