Is Rule of Law Enough to Protect Democracy?
March 27 @ 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Rule of Law has a long history in the human story. It has been implemented throughout history and in many different ways. American Democracy has depended on the rule of law and its traditions. What has changed, what’s it like to live without it, how much has been given away with the presidential immunity decision, how easily can we slip into autocracy, how can the law be manipulated, and more? This is a significant and challenging issue that requires our attention and action. Our speakers will provide what we need to understand this issue and offer ways to secure its viability and preserve and foster democracy.
To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_cqTGznePSnqqAhWy0y0GmQ
To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/
This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on Thursday, March 27th, 2025
Speakers:
Kim Lane Scheppele is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs and Director of the Program in Law and Normative Thinking at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Her research focuses on backsliding democracies around the world, documenting how aspirational autocrats have been elected to high office and then used their legal powers to undermine democratic institutions. With experience living in and tracing the destruction of democracy first in Russia and then in Hungary, Scheppele warns that there are now signs of danger in the United States. Her book on this subject, Destroying (and Restoring) Democracy by Law, is forthcoming from Harvard University Press. An elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Scheppele received the 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship in constitutional studies.
Aziz Z. Huq is a scholar of U.S. and comparative constitutional law at the University of Chicago. He has worked on topics ranging from democratic backsliding to regulating AI. His scholarly work is published in several books and leading law reviews, social science, and political science journals. He has also written for numerous publications including the Washington Post, the New York Times, Dissent, The Nation. He currently serves on the board of the American Constitution Society, the New Press, and the ACLU of Illinois. Before joining the Law School, he worked as counsel and then director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Project, Senior Consultant Analyst for the International Crisis Group, and as a law clerk for Judge Robert D. Sack of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Susan Herman, moderator, is the inaugural Ruth Bader Ginsburg Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School. Like Ginsburg, she served as General Counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union. In October 2008, Herman was elected as the seventh President of the ACLU, a position she held until stepping down in January 2021. She teaches courses in Constitutional Law and Criminal Procedure, and seminars including Terrorism and Civil Liberties, Law and Literature, COVID-19 and the Constitution, and Current Issues in Constitutional Law. Among her publications are many articles for general and scholarly audiences and books, including Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy (Oxford University Press 2011, 2014), which won the Roy C. Palmer Prize on Democracy, Civil Liberties, and the Rule of Law.
Event Co-sponsors:
