Evolutionary Due Process

The issue of evolution instruction in American public schools is becoming increasingly complex, both legally and politically. Until recently, the controversy over whether and how to teach evolution in public school science classes has been singularly focused on the constitutional limits of government support for religion under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. Current measures in Louisiana and Texas, however, represent a shift toward a new “adjudicative model” for addressing questions of evolution instruction. This adjudicative model permits individual educators to treat evolution issues on a case-by-case basis, which, in turn, implicates a new constitutional issue in the evolution education debate: procedural due process. By creating powerful disincentives for anti-evolutionist policymakers, procedural due process concerns could affect the future of evolution education even more profoundly than does the Establishment Clause. This Essay explores the relationship between evolution education policy and procedural due process by first identifying and defining the adjudicative model. It then considers the model’s constitutional ramifications for evolution instruction, concluding that this new approach to policymaking introduces procedural due process concerns that radically alter the legal and political calculus of the debate over evolution education

Evolutionary Due Process

The issue of evolution instruction in American public schools is becoming increasingly complex, both legally and politically. Until recently, the controversy over whether and how to teach evolution in public school science classes has been singularly focused on the constitutional limits of government support for religion under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. Current measures in Louisiana and Texas, however, represent a shift toward a new “adjudicative model” for addressing questions of evolution instruction. This adjudicative model permits individual educators to treat evolution issues on a case-by-case basis, which, in turn, implicates a new constitutional issue in the evolution education debate: procedural due process. By creating powerful disincentives for anti-evolutionist policymakers, procedural due process concerns could affect the future of evolution education even more profoundly than does the Establishment Clause. This Essay explores the relationship between evolution education policy and procedural due process by first identifying and defining the adjudicative model. It then considers the model’s constitutional ramifications for evolution instruction, concluding that this new approach to policymaking introduces procedural due process concerns that radically alter the legal and political calculus of the debate over evolution education

Congress, the Constitution, and Supreme Court Recusal

Recusal is one of the most hotly contested issues facing the Supreme Court. From the wide-ranging debate over Supreme Court recusal, however, a singular theme has emerged: Congress must do more to protect the integrity and legitimacy of the Court by regulating the Justices’ recusal practices. Herein lies the problem. Rather than solve the puzzle of Supreme Court recusal, direct congressional regulation has created an impasse between Congress and the Court that has consequences for the reputation, efficacy, and legitimacy of both Branches. In a precursor to this Article, I recast the issue of Supreme Court recusal as a constitutional question and argued that direct congressional regulation of Supreme Court recusal violates the separation of powers. This Article builds on that prior work and argues that separation of powers principles are critical to understanding and alleviating the inter-branch impasse over recusal. It contends that Congress, rather than the Court, should take the lead in resolving that impasse and that the separation of powers requires Congress to use indirect constitutional mechanisms to do so. Specifically, Congress should repeal the current statutory provision directly regulating Supreme Court recusal and focus instead on more indirect constitutional tools—such as impeachment, procedural reform, judicial confirmation, appropriations, and investigation— to influence the Justices’ recusal practices. This effort to frame the recusal debate within its proper constitutional context permits a more robust and productive dialogue about both the Justices’ recusal practices as well as the broader question of the nature and dynamics of inter-branch relations in our tripartite government

Science, Politics, and Administrative Legitimacy

Administrative agencies in the United States and other constitutional democracies around the world are continually faced with difficult questions about the legitimacy of their decisions.1 Each of these legitimacy questions in turn raises important second-order questions about how agencies should view their role within a constitutional democracy: How closely should agency decisions reflect popular political will? When and to what degree are deviations from popular opinion justified, and what measures should be taken to reduce the gap between regulators and the governed? What other sources of information are critical to agency decision making, and how should those inputs be treated when they counsel against politically popular outcomes? This short Article seeks to direct closer attention to a particular legitimacy question and, in the process, to offer some additional areas for thought as well as some ideas on how to begin addressing that questio