Constitutional scholar Evan Bernick, a member of the Northern Illinois University Law faculty, will speak at Bellarmine
University in its annual commemoration of Constitution Day on Friday, September 24,
at 3 p.m. in Pasteur Hall 207.
Bernick’s scholarship covers a range of topics, including constitutional law, philosophy
of law, social movements and law enforcement. His work has been published in journals
including the Georgetown Law Journal, the Notre Dame Law Review and the George Mason
Law Review.
The topic of his lecture at Bellarmine will be “Is Constitution Day Worth Celebrating?”
Bernick will argue that we should recognize the profound limitations of the 1787 Constitution
while celebrating the freedom struggles that found inspiration in its core promises
and undertook some of the most profoundly important moral projects in human history.
He will contend that the abolitionist movement and the early Republican Party from
which it emerged made the Constitution we have today worth celebrating by making possible
the ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Bernick believes
that the promises of the Fourteenth Amendment in particular have gone unfulfilled,
in part because the Supreme Court has often neglected their original meaning and purpose.
Drawing upon his forthcoming book, “The Original Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter
and Spirit” (with Professor Randy Barnett), Bernick will summarize these judicial
failures and sketch a path forward.
Bernick joined the Northern Illinois University Law faculty as an assistant professor
in 2021, teaching courses in constitutional law, criminal law, criminal procedure,
administrative law and legislation. From 2020 to 2021, he was a visiting professor
at the Georgetown University Law Center and the executive director of the Georgetown
Center for the Constitution. Before that, he served as a clerk to Judge Diane S. Sykes
of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. From 2017 to 2019,
he was a visiting lecturer at Georgetown and a resident fellow of the Center for the
Constitution. Previously, he has worked for conservative and libertarian think tanks
including The Cato Institute and The Heritage Foundation.
The event is free and open to the public. Face coverings are required indoors, and
– as a campus with a COVID-19 vaccination requirement – the university asks visitors
to be vaccinated.
The lecture is sponsored by the university’s Constitution Symposium, which organizes an annual symposium on the Constitution that examines the history
of the constitutional founding period, issues about constitutional interpretation,
the meaning of constitutional theory, and the practice of constitutional institutions. This
event was supported by the Jack Miller Center.
Constitution Day is celebrated annually on September 17 to honor the signing of the
U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787. In 2004, Congress introduced legislation
directing all educational institutions receiving federal funds to host an educational
program in the week surrounding Constitution Day.