In the summer of 2001, a group of lawyers, law professors, students, and judges formed the American Constitution Society. The organization’s avowed purpose is to counter the dominant vision of American law today, a narrow conservative vision that lacks appropriate regard for the ways in which the law affects people’s lives: and to restore the fundamental principles of respect for human dignity, protection of individual rights and liberties, genuine equality, and access to justice to their rightful- and traditionally central-place in American law. 1 By spring 2002, the American Constitution Society had formed more than fifty campus chapters, plus lawyer chapters in several cities, and had held hundreds of speaking programs
