Christendom’s Tocqueville Forum on Liberal Democracy will host a lecture and seminar on “The Morality of Original Meaning” with Professor J. Joel Alicea on Tuesday, August 30. The lecture, which will delve into the importance of consent or authorization in the context of classical legal thought, will be held in the college’s St. Kilian’s Cafe at 4:00 pm.
Alicea, who is Co-Director of the Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and Assistant Professor of Law at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America, is the first planned speaker for the college’s Tocqueville Forum this academic year. An expert on constitutional theory, Alicea’s lecture and seminar will discuss the morality of original meaning, with the lecture serving, in some ways, as a response to Adrian Vermeule’s “common good” constitutionalism.
Alicea previously served as a law clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., on the United States Supreme Court and for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. His scholarship has appeared, or is forthcoming, in the Virginia Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, among other publications. He has also been active in public debates about constitutional law, publishing essays in journals such as National Affairs and The Public Discourse.
Christendom’s Tocqueville Forum fosters an enriched understanding of America’s political principles in order to encourage informed civic engagement. The forum offers an annual series of lectures, seminars, reading groups, and other programming for the student body which advance a deeper knowledge of America’s fundamental political commitments to liberty and equality.
For more information on the Tocqueville Forum, visit here.