By Jamie L. Freedman
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia addressed a capacity crowd Nov. 3 at GW’s Jack Morton Auditorium for the opening event of the two-day George Washington Law Review Symposium.
An annual highlight of the GW Law calendar, this year’s symposium commemorated the 100th anniversary of Max Farrand’s great scholarly work Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Justice Scalia’s keynote address, focusing on “The Methodology of Originalism,” set the stage for a series of panel discussions on constitutional interpretation by distinguished scholars from across the nation.
Justice Scalia, who has visited GW Law School four times in recent years and is the longest-serving justice, offered a strong defense of originalism—the belief that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted according to the original meaning of the document’s words by the framers.
“My burden is not to show that originalism is perfect, but merely to show that it beats the other alternatives, and that is is not difficult,” he said. The justice explained that like any other legal text, such as statutes, the Constitution has a static meaning and its application to preexisting phenomena does not change over time. “History is a rock hard science compared to moral philosophy,” he said.
Appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Justice Scalia’s renowned sense of humor was on full display during his address and the ensuing question and answer period, eliciting frequent laughter from the audience.
Justice Scalia’s remarks were a fitting preamble to the symposium, sponsored by the George Washington Law Review and the Institute for Constitutional History. The event’s three panel discussions, featuring an array of scholars and prominent jurists, focused on The Records and Constitutional Meaning, The Records and the Judiciary, and the Records and Originalism.
In his welcoming remarks, GW Law Dean Paul Schiff Berman underscored the Law School’s close and longstanding relationship with the Supreme Court, emphasizing that Justice Scalia’s visit is one of many such highlights this year.
“At most law schools, today’s conference would be ‘the’ signature event of a five-year period,” Dean Berman said. “Yet, here at GW, this is only one among many visits of U.S. Supreme Court justices this year.”
“Justice Clarence Thomas has been here at GW every week this semester teaching a seminar with Professor Greg Maggs. In March, we will have three U.S. Supreme Court justices, as well as a number of judges and officials from the European Court of Human Rights, here for a conversation about judicial systems and procedures and their relationship to the protection of rights,” he said.
“Two more justices will welcome this delegation to the U.S. Supreme Court. Finally, we have Justice Elena Kagan coming to GW to judge our Van Vleck moot court competition in February,” he said. “And that’s all just in one year!
The opportunities that we have at GW are truly unique and exciting, and it’s part of what makes this school truly distinctive.”