Document Type
Article
Repository Date
2011
Keywords
Balkin, Jack, Disgusting, constitutional, originalist, Fourteenth Amendment
Subject Categories
Constitutional Law | Law
Abstract
Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin didn't win friends when he announced that (1) he is now a constitutional originalist and (2) the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the right to abortion. His claim to membership in the originalist club brought forth a small army of eager bouncers, who were sure that originalism couldn't possibly defend the paradigmatic departure from the Constitution's original meaning.
Balkin has indeed posed a radical challenge to the vision of law that drives the originalists – more radical than he is willing to admit. His theory is in such deep tension with a commonly held vision of the rule of law that his argument is, to put the point precisely, disgusting. But that doesn't mean that he is wrong.
Repository Citation
Koppelman, Andrew, "Why Jack Balkin is Disgusting" (2011). Faculty Working Papers. 17.
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/facultyworkingpapers/17
