Rethinking Constitutional Law through the lens of enforcement
Event Information
What does it mean to have a constitutional right if there is no effective way to enforce it? That question will be addressed at this year’s Constitution Day lecture at the University of Cincinnati Donald P. Klekamp College of Law, where Professor Katherine Mims Crocker will examine a fundamental but often overlooked dimension of constitutional law: enforcement. Rather than focusing solely on the doctrines and judicial decisions that define constitutional rights, Crocker’s lecture will explore the remedies, institutions and procedural rules that determine how those rights are actually protected in practice. The lecture will be held at 12:15 pm, Thursday, Sept. 17, in Rm. 160 of the College of Law.
CLE: 1 HR of General CLE has been approved in OH and KY.
About the lecture
Constitutional law is not just a series of doctrines and decisions that tell us what various provisions of the Constitution mean. Indeed, constitutional law is not even primarily that series of doctrines and decisions about meaning. In the ways that matter in the real world, constitutional law instead turns on the remedies available for enforcing constitutional meaning, on the institutions that supply those remedies, and on the jurisdictional and procedural rules that mediate access to those institutions. This lecture will advance the thesis that constitutional law is constitutional enforcement, with a focus on three areas of Professor Crocker's recent research: immunities from money damages, injunctions against unlawful actions, and consistency between constitutional rights.
About the lecturer
Katherine Mims Crocker is a scholar of the federal courts, civil-rights litigation, constitutional law, and state and local-government law. She has also taught courses on the Supreme Court, civil procedure, property, and judicial decision-making. Professor Crocker has published papers (or has work forth-coming) in leading journals including the Duke Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Virginia Law Re-view, and Washington University Law Review. She is an affiliate of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center.
Before joining the Cornell Faculty, Professor Crocker taught at the Texas A&M University School of Law and William & Mary Law School. She also served as the inaugural Faculty Director of the Texas A&M Center on the Structural Constitution, and she completed a fellowship at Duke Law School. Before entering academia, she practiced law at McGuireWoods LLP in Richmond, Virginia, concentrating on appellate litigation.
Professor Crocker clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. She received her law degree from the University of Virginia, where she graduated first in her class and was an Articles Development Editor on the Virginia Law Review. She earned her undergraduate degree cum laude from Harvard University.
This lecture is made possible through the generous support of the Alfred B. Katz Constitution Day Fund in memory of Alfred B. Katz '35.
Lead photo: istockphoto.com; Prof. Crocker: provided
Tags
Related Stories
Taking justice international
May 11, 2026
UC Klekamp College of Law’s LLM Program collaborates with the Ohio Innocence Project to impact global policy.
Innocence Network Midwest Regional Summit to unite advocates in Cincinnati
October 13, 2025
Cincinnati Law will host the Innocence Network Midwest Regional Summit to discuss updates in the field.
Law360: UC Law professor weighs in on National Labor Relations Board case
February 11, 2025
UC Law professor Anne Lofaso spoke with Law360 about the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board.