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Bouquet of funerary flowers on top of the Constitution.

How Originalism Killed the Constitution

A radical legal philosophy has undermined the process of constitutional evolution.
by Jill Lepore via The Atlantic on September 10, 2025
Collage of the American flag and the preamble to the Constitution.

The Historical Challenge to Originalism

Jonathan Gienapp's attack on originalism deserves a serious response.
by John O. McGinnis, Aaron N. Coleman, Mike Rappaport via Law & Liberty on January 16, 2025
Illustration of the Constitution, with the hand of a Founder writing with a feather, and the other side a 21st century hand writing with a pen.

The Supreme Court’s Originalists Are Fundamentally Wrong About History

The Founders didn’t believe the Constitution had a fixed meaning. So why do so many of the justices?
by Andrew Lanham via The New Republic on October 7, 2024
Photo of Supreme Court Justices posing in gowns.

The Origin of Specious

Originalism is not so much an idea as a legal-industrial complex divided into three parts—the academic, the jurisprudential, and the political.
by Garrett Epps via Washington Monthly on August 25, 2024
Stanford Law School.

Why the Right’s Mythical Version of the Past Dominates When It Comes to Legal “History”

They’re invested in legal education, creating an originalist industrial complex with outsize influence.
by Saul Cornell via Slate on May 14, 2024
Woman holding up a pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution.

Conservatives Don’t Have a Monopoly on Originalism

The text and historical context of the Constitution provide liberals with ample opportunities to advance their own vision of America.
by Simon Lazarus via The New Republic on March 29, 2024
Antonin Scalia speaking at a Federalist Society event.

How the Federalist Society Conquered the American Legal System

How the Federalist Society became the engine of the conservative legal movement—and where it might be headed next.
by Peter Shamshiri, Rhiannon Hamam, Michael Liroff, Amanda Hollis-Brusky via Balls And Strikes on February 13, 2024
A diagram of the parts of a flintlock pistol.

Bad Facts, Bad Law

In a recent Supreme Court oral argument about disarming domestic abusers, originalism itself was put to the test.
by Duncan Hosie via New York Review of Books on November 25, 2023
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Conservatives’ Favorite Legal Doctrine Crashes Into Reality

Originalism is all the rage on the right, but a gun case at the Supreme Court is exposing its absurdity—even to the conservative justices.
by Matt Ford via The New Republic on November 9, 2023
Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas and typed footnote

Clarence Thomas Went After My Work. His Criticisms Reveal a Disturbing Fact About Originalism.

If judges are going to use history as their guide, they should probably try to get the history right.
by Gregory Ablavsky via Slate on June 20, 2023
U.S. Supreme Court building where "Equal Justice Under Law" is written in stone.

The Originalist Case for Affirmative Action?

The argument made recently by Kim Forde-Mazrui may not be in good faith, but it does raise important questions about the meaning of the Constitution.
by Tal Fortgang via Law & Liberty on June 5, 2023
Supreme Court justices with their heads in boxes made from the Constitution.

Originalism Is Bunk. Liberal Lawyers Shouldn’t Fall For It.

The more liberals present originalist arguments, the more they legitimate originalism.
by Ruth Marcus via Washington Post on December 1, 2022
Painting of a person facing another person whose head is made up of sixteen little heads. Untitled (Study) by Geoff McFetridge.

Originalism’s Charade

Two new books make a devastating case against claims that the Constitution should be interpreted on the basis of its purported “original meaning.”
by David Cole via New York Review of Books on November 3, 2022
Eric Foner sits in an arm chair on stage during an interview, holding a microphone.

“Originalism Is Intellectually Indefensible”

On the persistent myth of the colorblind Constitution that the Supreme Court's conservatives have embraced.
by Eric Foner, Cristian Farias via Balls And Strikes on October 28, 2022
Portrait photo of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
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Justice Jackson Offered Democrats a Road Map for Securing Equal Rights

Tying the fight for equal rights to the founders and the Constitution has worked before.
by Evan Turiano via Made By History on October 10, 2022
A picture of the front of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court’s Faux ‘Originalism’

The conservative Supreme Court's favorite judicial philosophy requires a very, very firm grasp of history — one that none of the justices seem to possess.
by Joshua Zeitz via Politico Magazine on June 26, 2022
Contemplation of Justice statue

The Supreme Court’s Selective Memory

The Court’s striking down of a New York gun law relies on a fundamentally anti-democratic historical record that excludes women and people of color.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on June 24, 2022
James Madison
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What Would Madison Think of Originalism? Depends When You Asked Him.

The concern of this article is with the unraveling of precedent based upon a judicial philosophy known as originalism.
by Donald J. Fraser via HNN on June 5, 2022
A red gun and blue gun pointing in opposite directions, with flags spelling "We"

Originalism, Divided

The theory has not provided the clarity some of its early proponents had hoped it would.
by Harry Litman via The Atlantic on May 25, 2021

The Framers of the Constitution Didn’t Worry About ‘Originalism’

History shows that the text is far more complex than the legal doctrine might indicate.
by Jack Rakove via Washington Post on October 16, 2020
Painting of the signing of the Constitution.

The Original Theory of Constitutionalism

The debate between "originalism" and the "living constitution" rages on. What does history say?
by David Singh Grewal, Jedediah Britton-Purdy via The Yale Law Journal on January 24, 2018
The Supreme Court building.

Knowing How vs. Knowing That: Navigating the Past

How should we interpret the United States Constitution?
by Jonathan Gienapp via Process: A Blog for American History on April 4, 2017

The History Test

How should the courts use history?
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on March 27, 2017

Constitutional Originalism and History

Does the most historically minded school of constitutional law push history aside?
by Jonathan Gienapp via Process: A Blog for American History on March 20, 2017

Founding Fathers, Founding Villains

A review of a handful of new books that embody the new liberal originalism.
by William Hogeland via Boston Review on September 1, 2012

Dead or Alive: Originalism as Popular Constitutionalism in Heller

Was the 2008 Heller decision a victory for originalism or a living Constitution?
by Reva B. Siegel via Yale Faculty Scholarship Series on January 1, 2008
Image of the Preamble: We The People

On Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation

People continue to interpret the U.S. Constitution in different ways. One way is an originalist framework that favors the Founding Father's intent in 1787.
by Steven Calabresi via The National Constitution Center
Three students standing in front of an exhibit titled "Problems of Democracy."
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A Republic, if They Can Force It

In public schools around the country, conservatives are succeeding in their long effort to replace the word “democracy” with “constitutional republic.”
by Timothy Messer-Kruse via HNN on August 12, 2025
Rotunda features stone architecture and large paintings hanging on the walls.

The Originalist Case for Birthright Citizenship

Attempts to end birthright citizenship thwart an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.
by John Yoo, Robert Delahunty via National Affairs on July 9, 2025
U.S. Constitution

This Book Could Change the Way Conservatives Read the Constitution

“Against Constitutional Originalism” by historian Jonathan Gienapp could fundamentally reorient how we understand America’s founding.
by Cass R. Sunstein via Washington Post on September 25, 2024
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