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Law lecture to focus on localism, nationalism in American constitutional law

headshot of Sherry English By Sherry English
4 minute read January 23, 2025

Event Information (passed)

Date: - Location: Rm. 160, College of Law

One question dominates every other in American history: What should be national and what should be local? For many years, society has tended to favor national answers over local ones when it comes to American constitutional law. But should we?  Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, will discuss these issues during his lecture “American Constitutional Law: What Should Be National and What Should Be Local?”.

This event, the 2025 Robert S. Marx Lecture, will be held at 12:15 pm, Tuesday, February 4, 2025, in Room 160 at the College of Law.

CLE: 1 hour of general CLE credit has been approved for KY and OH.

About the Lecture

One question dominates every other in American history: What should be national and what should be local? Over the last 100 years or so, we have tended to favor national answers over local ones when it comes to American constitutional law. Often with good reasons: dealing with the imperatives of the Great Depression; bringing Jim Crow to heel; addressing policy challenges that have emerged from an increasingly national and global economy. Even as we recall the reasons not to forget these chapters in American history and even as we contend with chapters still unfolding, I wonder whether, halfway through our third century, we should pay more attention to the localism side of federalism and be more patient when it comes to the nationalism side of federalism. In debates about American constitutional law, there are many ways in which our fifty state constitutions and fifty state courts have critical roles to play.

About the Lecturer

Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton

Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton

Jeffrey S. Sutton is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He has served as Chair of the Federal Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules, and Chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission. He currently serves as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Since 1993, Chief Judge Sutton has been an adjunct professor at Michael E. Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University, where he teaches seminars on State Constitutional Law, the United States Supreme Court, and Appellate Advocacy. He also teaches a class on State Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. Among other publications, Chief Judge Sutton is the author of Who Decides? States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation and 51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Constitutional Law. He is the co-author of a casebook, State Constitutional Law: The Modern Experience, as well as The Law of Judicial Precedent. He is also the co-editor of The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law. In 2006, he was elected to the American Law Institute, and in 2017 he was elected to its Council.

Chief Judge Sutton received his bachelor’s degree from Williams College and his juris doctorate degree from Michael E. Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University.

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