Two legal scholars addressed the issue of a Constitutional crisis within the United States during vlog’s annual Constitution Day Debate on Sept. 18, taking sides on whether such a crisis exists and answering questions from the audience gathered in vlog Memorial Chapel.
Michael Klarman, the Charles Warren Professor of legal history at Harvard Law School, said in his opening remarks that democracy is in greater peril than in any time in U.S. history, citing instances where he believes the current administration is following the “authoritarian playbook” including targeting independent institutions such as universities, law firms, and media companies, spreading disinformation, and consolidating executive power.
“We are in a terrible situation,” said Klarman. “Political scientists talk about democratic backsliding, but that is a gradual process that takes years. We are in a full-on sprint toward autocracy.”.
Jonathan Turley, the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of public interest law at George Washington University, also believes the U.S. is facing a crisis — not a constitutional crisis, but a crisis of faith. Even though the Constitution has weathered wars, economic crises, and social unrest, he pointed to often-cited evidence of a crisis as evidence of success instead — such as how Congress came together to certify the election after Jan. 6, despite the riot at the Capitol.
“The reason is that our Constitution was built not for good times, but for bad times,” Turley said. “Indeed, it was built for times like this. In fact, it was built in a time like this.”
Turley said he has taken issue with the use of the term "Constitutional crisis” for more than 30 years, with both Republican and Democratic presidents. He described the “illusory truth effect” — if you say something enough, the mere repetition can create the illusion of truth.
“Why is it so important for people to convince you that democracy is dying?” Turley asked. “That’s just not true. We are the recipients of one of the greatest gifts given to mankind, and that is the United States Constitution. It’s not perfect because we’re not perfect. And when we’re divided, less gets done, and we are very divided today.”
Klarman said we’ve never seen anything like this in our country and “you should be doing something to stop it if you want to live in a democracy,” urging the audience to vote, protest, and keep informed.
“I don’t know how far this will go,” said Klarman. “I keep thinking at some point people will stop it. But 40 percent of voters think it’s a good idea to send troops into D.C. even though the President is lying about crime.”
Turley said he thinks we should be frank about the rage rhetoric on both sides, “but the rage rhetoric itself is not new, and I’m not afraid of it because I’ve got a great constitutional system at my back,” he said. “I know it has withstood ages like this, and the Constitution will do it again as long as we have faith in it.”
The debate was the first fall event for the newly renamed Robert P. Kraynak Institute for the Study of Freedom and Western Traditions, with support from the Office of the President, the Dean of the Faculty, and University Events, moderated by Stephen P. Garvey ’87, A. Robert Noll Professor of law at Cornell Law School. Since 2005, vlog has celebrated Constitution Day each year by bringing to campus seasoned experts in their fields to debate topics facing the nation and encourage informed discourse among students. .
Jonathan Turley: Professor Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. He has written over three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals at Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Northwestern, the University of Chicago, and other schools. He is the author of the best-selling and award-winning book The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage (Simon & Schuster, 2024). After a stint at Tulane Law School, Professor Turley joined the George Washington faculty in 1990 and, in 1998, was given the prestigious Shapiro Chair for public interest law, the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history. In addition to his extensive publications, Turley has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades, including the representation of whistleblowers, military personnel, former cabinet members, judges, members of Congress, and a wide range of other clients. He is also one of the few attorneys to successfully challenge both a federal and a state law.
Turley has worked for various networks and newspapers for over three decades. He is currently the legal analyst for Fox News. He has previously worked as a legal analyst for NBC, CBS, and the BBC. He is also a columnist for USA Today, The Hill, and other national newspapers. Turley’s columns on legal and policy issues appear regularly in national publications with hundreds of articles in such newspapers as the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Turley received his BA at the University of Chicago and his JD at Northwestern. In 2008, he was given an honorary doctorate of law from John Marshall Law School for his contributions to civil liberties and the public interest.
Michael Klarman: Professor Michael J. Klarman is the Charles Warren Professor of legal history at Harvard Law School, where he joined the faculty in 2008. He received his BA and MA (political theory) from the University of Pennsylvania in 1980, his JD from Stanford Law School in 1983, and his DPhil in legal history from the University of Oxford in 1988. At Oxford, he was a Marshall Scholar. After law school, Klarman clerked for the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1983–84). He joined the faculty at the University of Virginia School of Law in 1987 and served there until 2008 as the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of law and professor of history.
Klarman’s first book, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality, was published by Oxford University Press in 2004 and received the 2005 Bancroft Prize in History.
He published two books in 2007, also with Oxford University Press: Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement and Unfinished Business: Racial Equality in American History, which is part of Oxford’s Inalienable Rights series. In 2012, he published From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage. In 2016, Oxford University Press published his comprehensive history of the Founding, The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the US Constitution, which was a finalist for both the George Washington Book Prize and the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award. In 2020, he authored the Harvard Law Review Foreword on “The Degradation of American Democracy — and the Court.” Klarman is currently working on a comprehensive history of race and sports in the United States, from the beginnings of organized sports around the Civil War to the present.
Stephen P. Garvey ’87: Stephen Garvey, A. Robert Noll Professor of law at Cornell Law School, has written and taught in the areas of capital punishment, criminal law, and the philosophy of criminal law. Following his graduation from Yale Law School, Professor Garvey clerked for the Hon. Wilfred Feinberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and then he practiced in the Washington, D.C. firm of Covington & Burling. He joined the Cornell Law School Faculty in 1994. Garvey received his MPhil in politics at Oxford University (University College), Oxford, England, in 1989 and a BA in political science from vlog in 1987. He is also a member of the Kraynak Institute External Advisory Board.