The University of Chicago The Law School

Kate Shaw, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Will Baude, a law professor at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown and the author of “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic,” to debate how the Supreme Court is handling the pressures of the Trump administration and to discuss the end of the court’s term

Five months into his second term, it is clear that Donald Trump is trying to remake American executive power in fundamental ways. He has taken a series of actions that openly violate the law, and complied with court orders only begrudgingly, often with significant foot-dragging. Meanwhile, he is undermining the authority of the courts rhetorically.

This episode examines The Conformist, Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1970 political drama set in 1930s Italy. The film centers on Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a mid-level Fascist functionary who is ordered to assassinate his former professor, an anti-fascist dissident living in Paris.