The University of Chicago The Law School

Spotify episode description: In this episode, I sit down with Alison LaCroix, the Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, to discuss her recent book: The Interbellum Constitution (2024). It looks at the period between the end of the War of 1812 and the Civil War and tells a very different story about Constitutional meaning and change. One that brings in different characters and gives us a new way to understand the role between history and law.

 

President Trump’s Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago, set to the theme of “The Great Gatsby,” reenacted the decadence of that story’s licentious era: befeathered flappers shimmying in the crowd; gilded and onyx décor; scantily clad women posing in an enormous champagne coupe. The revelatory moment says so much about where we stand today — and what we could be lurching into next.

Attorneys representing a group of protesters, clergy and journalists suing the federal government over what they allege are excessive and “indiscriminate” use of tear gas and pepper spray argued before a federal judge Wednesday morning, saying the court should issue a preliminary injunction that would stop federal agents from using crowd control chemicals against protesters and others in the Chicago area.