In the early twentieth century, when class war shook the nation’s institutions, labor radicals within the American Civil Liberties Union claimed a right to agitate through organized economic pressure: a right of workers to picket, boycott, and strike. Over time, they hitched those controversial commitments to a conservative constitutional tradition that valorized individual rights. Their modern vision of civil liberties attracted adherents across the political spectrum. At the height of the New Deal, an unlikely coalition of activists and corporate lawyers redeployed the First Amendment to shield business interests from the intrusive reach of the state. On the new understanding, a powerful Bill of Rights protected conservatives as well as radicals, industry as well as labor.

Legal historian Laura Weinrib will explore how that forgotten constitutional bargain has shaped the battle over the meaning and limits of civil liberties and state power today.

2:00 p.m.  Registration and networking
2:30 p.m.  Presentation and discussion
3:30 p.m.  Reception

$20/person
$10/recent graduate (College alumni of the past 10 years and graduate alumni of the past five years)
Free for Class of 2016 UChicago alumni
Two complimentary registrations for members of the Chicago, Harper, Phoenix, and Medical and Biological Sciences Alumni Association philanthropic societies

Please RSVP here.