Should we consider the health care reform act, which President Obama signed into law today to be a civil rights act? There is good reason to do so. Though the Act is far from perfect, it does represent a commitment by Congress to expand access to a fundamental human right. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and his family, including . . . medical care.” Martin Luther King called access to medical care a civil right. Though our Constitution does not include a right to health care (or any other substantive economic rights), it does give Congress the authority to create such rights. And, in a speech after the passage of the Act, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invoked the Declaration of Independence’s statement that all people are …

I want to thank everyone for coming here today.
I think that when we first heard that Bob had died, we were completely bereft. We were completely stunned. Bob had been around here for so long that none of us could imagine this law school without him. We had a memorial service of sorts for him shortly after he died largely to help us get through what we were going through. It was I guess in some ways a good event, but it was really a terribly sad event. It was one of the few times that so many students had seen so many faculty cry. Not just a bit teary-eyed, but really, really cry.

One of the things that Bob’s friends did at that time was create a book in which people wrote some thoughts and feelings about Bob and what he had meant to them. Andy Strauss helped …

This will be a short talk about one of Bobby’s “big ideas,” about pragmatism, which might be best described as revolutionary pragmatism.

Bobby’s interest in constitutional revolutions is well-documented, but the full corpus of his work documents a broader and deeper commitment to a revolutionary creed.  Each of his articles is in fact a mini-insurrection, a rebellion against one order or another.  As an author, Bobby is the James Dean of pragmatists; you got it, he rebels against it.  In his writings, no order is stable, no heuristic is safe, no paradigm is left unshifted.

Journey into one of his articles and see the world get re-made.   Old structures yield to new ones – of Bobby’s creation.  Old dichotomies yield to new ones – of Bobby’s creation.  Old terms yield to new ones – of Bobby’s creation.  So meet the new boss – he’s the not the same as the …