The Second Amendment and the Personal Right to Arms

For many years, the Second Amendment was politely ignored, or summarily dismissed, by America\u27s legal academy. In recent years, however, more and more law professors have begun taking the Second Amendment seriously. Professor William Van Alstyne, one of the nation\u27s most respected Constitutional law professors, and the author of a leading Constitutional law casebook; offers his contribution in this essay. Van Alstyne suggests that the Second Amendment means exactly what it says: that individual citizens have a right, not merely a privilege, to own and carry firearms. He also commends the National Rifle Association for its constructive role as a defender of civil liberties. This essay was first published in 1994, in volume 43 of the Duke Law Journal, beginning on page 1,236. It is reprinted by permission

What Helps Law Professors Develop as Teachers? -- An Empirical Study

The overall goal of this article is to provide concrete suggestions for how law schools can improve teaching and enrich law student learning. In doing so, it reviews and analyzes the data collected from two national surveys about the kinds of faculty development activities that are most effective in improving law professors’ teaching. One survey was designed to quantify how many law teachers engaged in twenty-two types of teaching development activities over the previous five years and to assess the effectiveness of each of those activities. The other survey focused on the effectiveness of a national conference on teaching and learning in law school. This article builds upon Improving Teaching and Learning in Law School: Faculty Development Research, Principles, and Programs, 12 WIDENER L. REV. 443 (2006), which presented the principles fundamental to effective faculty development programs. This article shows how these principles apply by providing data about the effectiveness of a wide range of teaching development activities

A Law Professor’s Guide to Natural Law and Natural Rights

Law professors nowadays mention natural law and natural rights on a regular basis, and not just in jurisprudence. Given that the founding generation universally subscribed to the idea of natural rights, this concept regularly makes a prominent appearance in discussions of constitutional law. One simply cannot avoid the concept if one is to explain Justice Samuel Chase\u27s well-known claim in Calder v. Bull that [t]here are certain vital principles in our free Republican governments, which will determine and over-rule an apparent and flagrant abuse of legislative power .... An ACf of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority. Nor can law professors explain to their students the reference in the Ninth Amendment to the other rights retained by the people without mentioning the preexistent rights of nature

Foreword: Reflections on our Founding

Law Journals have been under heavy criticism for as long as we can remember. The criticisms come from all quarters, including judges, law professors, and even commentators at large. In an address at the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference almost a decade ago, for example, Chief Justice Roberts complained about the “disconnect between the academy and the profession.” More pointedly, he continued, “[p]ick up a copy of any law review that you see, and the first article is likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th Century Bulgaria, or something, which I’m sure was of great interest to the academic that wrote it, but isn’t of much help to the bar.” Similarly, law professors have developed what Lawrence Friedman calls “a literature of invective” against law reviews. Adam Liptak summarized one line of criticism with a question: “[W]hy are law reviews, the primary repositories of legal scholarship, edited by law students?

Foreword: Reflections on our Founding

Law Journals have been under heavy criticism for as long as we can remember. The criticisms come from all quarters, including judges, law professors, and even commentators at large. In an address at the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference almost a decade ago, for example, Chief Justice Roberts complained about the “disconnect between the academy and the profession.” More pointedly, he continued, “[p]ick up a copy of any law review that you see, and the first article is likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th Century Bulgaria, or something, which I’m sure was of great interest to the academic that wrote it, but isn’t of much help to the bar.” Similarly, law professors have developed what Lawrence Friedman calls “a literature of invective” against law reviews. Adam Liptak summarized one line of criticism with a question: “[W]hy are law reviews, the primary repositories of legal scholarship, edited by law students?

A Call to Action: The New Academy of Food Law & Policy

The food system is affected by unique and complex laws. These laws call for a new generation of legal practitioners and scholars. This essay announces the creation of the Academy of Food Law and Policy. The Academy creates a network of law professors researching, teaching, and mentoring in food law and policy

Brief of Law Professors as Amicus Curiae in Support of Respondent

Inventors lacking assurance of a market, or even the right to practice patented inventions, face considerable risk. Those who qualify for patents, in return for disclosure, receive only the assistance of the courts in excluding others from economic exploitation of their inventions. Already subject to many legislative and judicial limitations, patents should not be further subject to the functional equivalent of private inverse condemnation without congressional action