March 20, 2025
The Centrality of the Regime Question
March 12, 2025
A Violent Clash of Contrary Values - Part 2
March 6, 2025
Too Short—Trump's Address to Joint Session of Congress
March 6, 2025
A Violent Clash of Contrary Values - Part 1
February 20, 2025
Beyond Brennan’s Blooper
February 11, 2025
Contra Koppelman: What Mere Natural Law Was About
February 6, 2025
Fabricated Identity and the Dilemma of Moral Authority - Part 2
January 23, 2025
Fabricated Identity and the Dilemma of Moral Authority - Part 1
January 9, 2025
Originalism and Ancient Rabbinic Exegesis
December 19, 2024
Anchoring Truths Year End Staff Picks
December 17, 2024
First Order Truths and the Untethered Human Spirit - Part 2
December 12, 2024
First Order Truths and the Untethered Human Spirit - Part I
October 16, 2024
A Lament for Our Noble Culture
October 3, 2024
Anchoring Originalism
August 29, 2024
Legal Conservatives: Fear Not a Second Trump Term
July 31, 2024
Closed on Sunday
July 11, 2024
The Myth of Citizens United
July 10, 2024
Judicial Value Judgments and the Common Good
June 20, 2024
Why Focusing on Time, Place, or Manner Speech Restrictions Neglects the Natural Roots of Law
Jeffrey Bristol W'24 argues that content-neutral restrictions on speech diminish the substantive roots of our law that are reflective of ordered liberty.
May 1, 2024
James Wilson's View on Oaths
May 1, 2024
Kari Lake Fumbles with Abortion
Hadley Arkes responds to the WSJ editorial on Kari Lake's "abortion finesse."
April 26, 2024
The Sharpening Crisis of the Palestinian Protests
March 13, 2024
Whited Sepulchres
Gerry Bradley Responds to Daniel Dreisbach's "Reading the Bible with the Founders"
Diaries from Wartime
March 1, 2024
Evil Up Close: Jana Paley's Diary in Wartime
Hadley Arkes introduces a new series from friend of the Institute, Jana Paley.
April 3, 2024
Diaries From Wartime: Crippling Interruptions to Institutional Trust
An encounter with two female members of the Israeli Defense Force gives Jana Paley a new view of the IDF in this latest installment of "Evil Up Close: Diaries of Wartime."
April 19, 2024
Diaries From Wartime: One or Two Degrees of Separation
Daily life in Jerusalem as Israel recovers from the events of October 7, 2023
May 29, 2024
Diaries From Wartime: Service Amid Suffering
Jana Paley's final installment in her visit to Israel in the wake of the October 7 attacks
December 15, 2023
Why Did Liz Magill Take the Fall?: The Scandal of Three Presidents
The presidents of three prestigious Ivy League Universities testify before the House Committee, and as a result of this discussion, Magill resigns.
November 17, 2023
Free Speech Sense and Sensibility
October 13, 2023
The Forgotten Protection for Individual Liberty
CRCD Executive Director Trey Dimsdale hopes that a focus on religious liberty protections in the states can "play a significant role in rekindling popular and political interest in federalism and republicanism for the sake of advancing and securing the liberty to which all Americans are entitled."
September 15, 2023
Attacks on Catholic Institutions Should Concern All of Us
JWI Affiliated Scholar Daniel Mark warns that a double standard cannot form that removes the promise of equal protection of the law from Catholic institutions.
September 1, 2023
Institutional Settlement, Determination, and "Mere Natural Law"
In reviewing "Mere Natural Law," scholar Jordan Perkins argues that it is necessary that legal cognition be infused with moral reasoning.
August 4, 2023
The Pitfalls of the Parents' Rights Argument
"The pitfall of the argument in favor of parents’ rights is that it makes the decision for children to be exposed to information about sexual activity or access to puberty blockers a matter of a parent’s will," writes Sarrouf.
July 21, 2023
A Natural Rights Approach to Religious Liberty
In this article, Phillip Muñoz suggests how we can read the religious free exercise and establishment clauses in light of the Constitution’s original design and purposes, being situated properly in a tradition of natural law and rights.
July 13, 2023
Can Natural Law Be "Mere"?
Cline argues that the roots of a nation's receptiveness to the Natural Law grow from its Christian foundation.
July 11, 2023
Natural Born Lawyers: A Scholar Challenges The Conservative Legal Movement
David Deavel reviews Mere Natural Law, showing how it ddraws out the moral arguments present in nature.
June 30, 2023
'Dobbs' a Year Later: The Lady in the Hat and the Vase
Hadley Arkes reflects on the year since the overturning of "Roe v. Wade" and unpacks the next steps a brave judge could take in protecting the pre-born.
June 16, 2023
Standing Athwart History, Redux: Review of Patrick Deneen's "Regime Change"
John Ehrett '21 wants a successful postliberal theory to have "bigger and brighter dreams" than Patrick Deneen does in "Regime Change."
June 16, 2023
WATCH: Hadley Arkes on The Eric Metaxas Show
June 2, 2023
The Urgent Need to Remove DEI from Higher Ed in Ohio
Hal R. Arkes's testimony on a paradigmatic effort to remove mandated DEI from higher ed in one state
May 9, 2023
VIDEO: Judge Janice Rogers Brown, 2023 Leadership & Law Award Remarks
Judge Janice Rogers Brown delivers stirring remarks on the future of the country and the role of the judge upon receiving the 2nd JWI Leadership & Law Award.
March 31, 2023
Why We Cannot Avoid Natural Law in Constitutional Debates
Michael Hayes (JWF '20) analyzes the Court's positions on substantive due process in the key Dobbs decision, and makes clear that try as we might, we never can truly escape from moral reasoning and the Natural Law.
March 24, 2023
My Warm Up for Judge Duncan—and What Next for Stanford?
Hadley Arkes shares his own experience with student protests at Stanford Law and asks how its administration will respond to the next incident.
March 3, 2023
James Wilson and the Nature of Law
Prof. Jonathan Gienapp explains how Wilson's integrated view of law grounds the harmony of law and philosophy that he argued for in the Constitution's ratification debates.
February 24, 2023
James Wilson and "We the People"
Prof. John Mikhail describes the unique role of James Wilson among the Founders as both moral philosopher and legal scholar who shaped our Constitution and our concept of who "We the People" are in the United States.
February 10, 2023
Is Conservative Jurisprudence Renouncing Moral Reasoning?
Prof. Arkes argues that moral judgments, rather than belonging to legislators instead of judges, are an essential - indeed inescapable - part of the work of a judge, especially in recognizing the most basic facts that bear on their judgments.
February 3, 2023
In Search of Original Meaning -- the Religion Clauses: Part II
In Part II, Assistant Editor Ted Hirt concludes with an evaluation of Phillip Munoz's understanding of the Constitution's religious clauses.
January 27, 2023
In Search of Original Meaning – the Religion Clauses: Part I
Anchoring Truths Assistant Editor Ted Hirt reviews Philip Muñoz's book, "Religious Liberty and the American Founding, Natural Rights and the Original Meanings of the First Amendment." This first of two pieces analyzes the work the Muñoz has done to outline the foundations of our Religious Liberty.
January 18, 2023
Born-Alive Act Redux!
Prof. Arkes reflects on his work crafting the Born Alive Act and takes some time to analyze the latest version of the Act, to him the best ever.
December 20, 2022
Anchoring Truths Year End Book Recommendations
October 12, 2022
Protecting Babies Who Survive Abortions Is the First Step
Prof. Hadley Arkes responds in the WSJ explaining how reviving the Born Alive Infants Protection Act could prove the best strategy for Republicans in Congress.
October 10, 2022
Common Carriage Now
Contributing Editor Josh Hammer argues that Congress should embrace treating tech companies as common carriers according to a First Amendment standard for exemption from liability.
October 5, 2022
Dispatches from NatCon 3
Capturing the mood and ethos of the National Conservatism Conference up-close
September 30, 2022
Justice Alito’s Warning on Religious Liberty
September 22, 2022
Common Good Originalism After Dobbs
September 16, 2022
Four Things We Should Teach Children about the Constitution
September 9, 2022
What Thomas Aquinas via Harry Jaffa Can Say to the New Right
Where does Harry Jaffa's account of Natural Law differ from Thomas Aquinas’s, if at all, and how can that inform the New Right.
August 15, 2022
Putting Progressive Jurisprudence On Notice
July 22, 2022
The Next Pro-Life Goal Is Constitutional Personhood
Josh Hammer and Josh Craddock outline the path ahead for the pro life movement at the Federal level, as legislators act to prevent our nation becoming "a house divided against itself."
July 22, 2022
Selective History in the Dobbs Dissent
JWI Affiliated Scholar Justin Dyer criticizes Justice Sotomayor's dissenting opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case. However, he also appreciates that the dissent does not exclusively rely on historicism.
July 14, 2022
Diseconomies of Law
Anchoring Truths co-founder Garrett Snedeker reviews Trouble at the Bar on Law and Liberty.
July 4, 2022
The God of the Declaration
The American Founders and Lincoln believed in a Natural Law and a natural lawgiver at the moral core of the project they brought forth, argues JWI Affiliated Scholar Justin Dyer
July 4, 2022
The Declaration's Substantive Global Appeal
The Declaration of Independence's unique appeal globally cannot be explained by its formal aspects only
June 30, 2022
"What Comes After Roe" - Gerard V. Bradley
Today, the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled.” Almost fifty years after handing down its calamitous abortion decision on January 22, 1973, SCOTUS has finally corrected the biggest mistake it ever made.
June 24, 2022
After Dobbs: The End of the Beginning
James Wilson Institute Founder Hadley Arkes reflects on the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
June 23, 2022
Samuel Alito's Prophetic Vision
Senior Scholar David Forte praises Samuel Alito's courage, as demonstrated by his draft opinion for Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
June 17, 2022
A Price Too Great: Reviewing Philip Hamburger’s "Purchasing Submission"
Professor Philip Hamburger takes aim at the myriad ways in which many statutes and regulations trade the Constitution’s structural protections of liberty for rule by condition.
June 17, 2022
Roe v. Wade Is Already Dead
Roe is, practically speaking, already dead — regardless of what the Court decides to do in Dobbs.
May 31, 2022
The Conservative Legal Movement at the Edge of Schism
James Wilson Institute Founder Hadley Arkes writes for Public Discourse about the future of the pro-life movement after Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
May 31, 2022
A Post-Roe Legislative Agenda for Congress
Josh Craddock, Affiliated Scholar and alumnus of the James Wilson Fellowship, explores the best courses of action for pro-life congressmen to take after the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
May 16, 2022
Common Good Constitutionalism: A Symposium
April 27, 2022
A Jurisprudential Red Pill: Part I
Evelyn Blacklock examines Prof. Adrian Vermeule's "Common Good Constitutionalism" and the alternative it offers to the status quo camps of jurisprudence.
May 12, 2022
A Jurisprudential Red Pill: Part II
Evelyn Blacklock continues her commentary on Vermeule's Common Good Constitutionalism, showing the strengths of the argument, while also demonstrating some needed nuances between the Classical and the Enlightenment perspectives of law.
May 16, 2022
Are We All Common Good Constitutionalists Now?
John Ehrett '21 analyzes the role Vermeule’s book plays
in calling for a return to better legal reasoning. Yet, even Vermeule's
solution may not address the root of the problem.
August 19, 2022
Stricter Scrutiny for Common Good Constitutionalism
How does the common good constitutionalism of Adrian Vermeule compare to the natural law originalism of Hadley Arkes?
May 6, 2022
The Consummate Statecraft of Samuel Alito
April 13, 2022
What the Hearings Missed
In the aftermath of Judge Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court, Hadley Arkes analyzes the Senate hearings. Despite some well-timed questions, Republicans ultimately missed their chance to put Judge Jackson on the record defending the right to kill unwanted children even after birth.
March 18, 2022
"It's Good (Not) to be the King": Qualified Praise for Michael McConnell
Anchoring Truths co-founder Garrett Snedeker offers two cheers for Prof. Michael McConnell's recent book on executive power under the Constitution.
March 8, 2022
Once More Unto the Breach: Arkes v. Whelan on the Overruling of Roe
In a response to Ed Whelan’s critique of “On Overturning Roe,” Prof. Arkes insists that the moral argument against Roe is the only logical one for judges who believe in the deep wrong of abortion. The pro-life cause rests on objective moral truths, not on value judgments, and as a result does not require judges (as Whelan claims) “to read their own moral convictions into the Constitution.”
February 25, 2022
Breaking the Sotomayor Mold
Kody Cooper argues that a new Supreme Court justice in the style of Sotomayor would fail to pass the "test of truth" when it comes to abortion, religious liberty, and takings. If the Senate Judiciary Committee cares about truth, it should therefore disavow the Sotomayor mold.
February 24, 2022
Justice Byron White and Abortion
Responding to Richard Doerflinger's critique of "Waiting for Dobbs," Prof. Arkes asserts that conservative justices could successfully outlaw most abortions by returning to Justice White’s standard: only abort to save the mother’s life. At the same time, however, White did the pro-life cause a lasting disservice by focusing not on the rights of unborn babies but on the abuse of "raw judicial power."
February 9, 2022
Waiting for Dobbs
Hadley Arkes recalls that day, back in 1986, when Justice Byron White, one of the original dissenters in Roe v. Wade, startled Justice John Paul Stevens by suggesting that he too could accept Roe and a “right to abortion” in some form. Stevens seemed genuinely baffled. What White was offering was an understanding that would keep Roe v. Wade as a shell, while the substance was removed. Professor Arkes tries to reconstruct that argument here as an anticipation of what might happen if the Supreme Court seeks to take “the low door under the whole” in the Dobbs case—sustaining the law in Mississippi while affecting not to overrule Roe v. Wade.
January 10, 2022
Founder's Keepers: Arkes on The Role of Govenment in Defining our Culture
In 2006, Prof. Hadley Arkes makes some timeless remarks at The Federalist Society on what the proper role of government is when it comes to culture.
January 6, 2022
Founder's Keepers: Arkes on Mary Eberstadt's Review of Judge Robert Conrad's "John Fisher & Thomas More"
Prof. Hadley Arkes on a review that Mary Eberstadt wrote of Judge Conrad's book "John Fisher & Thomas More"
December 9, 2021
‘Dobbs’ and the Conservative Legal Movement
If ‘Dobbs’ is decided following the ‘neutral principles’ of constitutional interpretation, it would not mean the end of abortion, according to Gerald Bradley, or even the beginning of the end of it. ‘Dobbs’ would instead be the start of a whole new phase of the political struggle over abortion. Yet the Constitution requires more.
November 30, 2021
Common Good and Common Belief in the Common Law
With discussions about the common good reaching the public square, Timon Cline writes about how the common good can be determined by both judges and legislature.
November 23, 2021
Corporations, Churches, Persons, and the Natural Law
Robert Miller responds to Prof. Adam MacLeod and argues that corporations are not real things of the world, but rather the outgrowth of human beings who for legal purposes should be considered the only entities that be judged to be in accord with law and morality.
November 17, 2021
Our Divided House: A Review of Charles Kesler's Crisis of Two Constitution
Prof. Gerard Bradley reviews "Crisis of Two Constitutions" by Charles Kesler, analyzing whether we've hit our Weimar moment or not.
Churches and the Government
November 17, 2021
Churches: An Existence of Their Own or Creatures of the Sovereign?
JWI and First Liberty's CRCD Co-hosted a webinar with Profs. Adam MacLeod and Robert Miller. They discussed the relationship of churches and the government, and whether churches have an existence of their own or if they simply exist from a grant of the government.
November 17, 2021
Churches: An Existence of Their Own
Prof. Adam MacLeod argues that Churches have an existence independent of government recognition or contract.
November 17, 2021
No free exercise for Aztecs—or abortionists
Jordan Ballor presents the proper limits for religious liberty. Strong belief isn't enough to justify actions that violate the natural law.
School Prayer
November 12, 2021
Is it Time to Rethink the School Prayer Cases?
Prof. Francis Beckwith makes the argument for re-opening the question of school prayers in the courts, explaining how this would enable local governments to seek the common good.
December 6, 2021
A Common Call to Prayer
Continuing our symposium on school prayer, JWI Affiliated Scholar Gunnar Gundersen makes the case for a common call to prayer in American public life and in its public education.
December 17, 2021
And All the Students Said, “Amen”
By offering a voluntary prayer, the government introduces its students to religion in a way that is not coercive or intrusive. It is, rather, a traditional acknowledgement of religion, even if it simply constitutes a recognition of the theistic origins of our unalienable rights.
January 17, 2022
When "Matter" Really Matters
A focus on the jurisprudence of the school prayer cases, rather than on the matter and form of the polity, avoids the central task for conservative legal scholars and advocates seeking to shape again the moral culture.
November 5, 2021
Sentimental Judgments
Garrett Snedeker reviews "Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free" by Judge Rakoff, analyzing proposed reforms to the criminal justice system.
November 4, 2021
Judge Pryor’s Friendly Fire
Prof. Arkes defends "A Better Originalism" against Judge William Pryor's critique.
October 6, 2021
Whelan-Arkes Exchange: Last Round
JWI's Founder and Director Hadley Arkes goes another round with Ed Whelan and discusses the rightful place for moral reasoning in judicial jurisprudence
