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Articles by Mark Pulliam
A New Form of Political Theater
Anyone who appreciates political ideas and music will open Martha Nussbaum’s The Republic of Love with a twinge of envy. Nussbaum is one of the best-known political philosophers of our time, a University of Chicago professor who has won nearly every prize the humanities have to offer. On top of that, for years she wrote program essays for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and for La Monnaie in Brussels. The book gathers those essays, reworked into a continuous argument.
God, Man, and Academic Freedom
The 25-year-old William F. Buckley Jr. wrote God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom” with an appreciation of the contributions made by leading universities in the United States, Great Britain, and elsewhere in the building of our civilization. His special concern was with the civic order, and the role of institutions of higher education in forming citizens of a constitutional democratic republic.
Zoning and the American Way
A friend of mine was once mayor of a small city, about forty thousand souls. A local landowner petitioned to develop single-family homes on a parcel he owned, about 20 acres. It was “ranch land,” given over to meadows with a few copses of trees. Lovely place. When the hearing was held over this development, there was a surprise waiting: all six neighbors showed up to insist, vociferously, that the rancher must not be allowed to develop the land. They said they preferred the meadows and trees.
Clarence Thomas, a Profile in Courage
Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is remarkable in many ways. His unusual journey from impecunious, fatherless circumstances in Jim Crow-era Pin Point, Georgia, to Yale Law School and the Marble Temple of the Supreme Court is dramatic enough, as I recounted here in 2020.
David Hume, Political Philosopher
The year 1776 is notable for new beginnings. But it also saw the death of one of the greatest philosophers in the Western tradition. David Hume (1711–76) is often described by ideological labels such as liberal or conservative, as well as eighteenth-century party names (Whig and Tory). But these labels obfuscate Hume’s intentions. Neither an ideologue nor a party man, Hume thought about politics primarily as a philosopher searching for true answers.
Clarence Darrow’s Tawdry Finale
Growing up, I had a fascination with books about courtroom dramas: Louis Nizer’s My Life in Court, F. Lee Bailey’s The Defense Never Rests, Irving Stone’s Clarence Darrow for the Defense, and similar fare. I admired these legal gladiators in the same fashion as I did my youthful comic book heroes. They seemed to be larger-than-life, righteous, and standing for “truth, justice, and the American way,” Superman’s iconic motto.
Saving the Court: A Millennial Civics Lesson
Citizenship requires an understanding of how government works, particularly the poorly covered and oft-maligned judicial branch. Few people have ever read the pro-ratification Federalist Papers or even the U.S. Constitution itself.
The Bonfire of Open Borders
A Better Life by Lionel Shriver Harper 304 pps./ $20.20 In his 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe lampooned 1980s New York City—including its rampant street crime, self-important bond traders, race hustlers, biased media, and feckless elected officials—in a manner that was both scathing and funny. Lionel Shriver’s A Better Life gives the same mordant treatment to Brooklyn’s anti-ICE, open borders do-gooders.
Justice Alito Cleans the Augean Stable of Faux Voting Rights Precedents
The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Louisiana v. Callais may dramatically alter congressional districts in Southern states. Writing for a 6-3 majority, Justice Samuel Alito unraveled decades of confusing and misguided caselaw construing the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) to hold that states may not engage in racial gerrymandering—or be forced to do so by federal courts—when drawing congressional districts.
Abundance Liberalism's Statist Heart
April 30, 2026 There are deep and intractable problems in abundanista-land. In one sense, the debate about abundance is about the future of the left in America. That is the political agenda underlying many of the economic ideas promoted by the journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their 2025 book Abundance. Right now, the center-left in America is fixated on regulating everything to realize greater social justice in the economy.
Mobocracy in America – Mark Pulliam
To many Americans, Jonathan Turley is an avuncular commentator who appears frequently on Fox News and other media outlets to discuss legal issues, a role for which he is well-equipped as a long-time law professor at George Washington University in DC. In fact, Turley is far more than a talking head or law professor.
The Education Democracy Requires
There has long been a divide among conservatives and liberals when it comes to education: Do you want the “sage on the stage” model or the “guide on the side?” Do you desire teachers standing in front of classes, imparting knowledge and ideas, or is it better to let learning be driven by students’ interests, with teachers largely in the role of assisting when needed? Conservatives have tended to prefer the latter and liberals the former.
European Exceptionalism – Theodore Dalrymple
A question naturally arises when reviewing a conspectus of European history, such as Walter A. McDougall’s The Mighty Continent: A Candid History of Modern Europe. At whom is it aimed? Clearly, one does not criticise a children’s book as if it were a hymnal, or vice versa. What, then, is the function or purpose of a candid history of Europe? (I presume by candid the author means what Oliver Cromwell meant when he asked the portraitist to paint him warts and all.
The tawdry shenanigans of the Southern Poverty Law Center
In the financial world, most frauds are short-lived. Ponzi schemes such as Bernie Madoff’s eventually run out of new suckers to provide enough funds to pay the phony “returns” promised to earlier investors. When the cash flow dries up, the scam collapses. The con artists at the non-profit Southern Poverty Law Center have a different racket, and a different problem.
The New "Men of System"
The “abundance agenda,” based largely on a new book Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, has set off intense debate on the left over the proper role of markets and intervention in society. Samuel Gregg’s lead essay for this very timely Law & Liberty forum rightly notes that the shifting political ground on both left and right has raised the salience of the issue of dynamism, and technological advances among politicians, economists, and public intellectuals.
A Justice in Full
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito attends a meeting in ... more Justice Alito is the least heralded conservative on the Supreme Court; Hemingway corrects that by revealing the formidable man beneath the robe. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has served on the US Supreme Court for 20 years, but has never gotten the attention—or credit—he deserves. Alito was nominated to the Court by President George W.
Adam Smith’s Gift – Helen Dale
March 3, 2026 He had a knack for noticing, which is as relevant to commercial society as it is to moral philosophy or the arts. Like many people, I cracked the spine on Wealth of Nations first: it was more famous than Theory of Moral Sentiments. There it sat, fatly, in my high school library’s stacks, waiting for me to take it down from the shelf. It was also, I realised some years later, my first encounter with a Liberty Fund publication.
The Rise and Rise of the Civil Rights State – R. Shep Melnick
I appreciate the way Tal Fortgang, Thomas Powers, and John McGinnis have accurately summarized my arguments while presenting thoughtful criticisms of them. Although we agree on many points, I remain far more critical of the Trump administration’s interpretation and deployment of civil rights law than they are. Here I will try to explain why.
A Failure of Vision – John C. Pinheiro
Is it possible to transform the United States from a society of dependents and victims into a “productive republic of owners”? Legal theorist Robert C. Hockett thinks that it is. In A Republic of Producers, he presents an “expansive and galvanizing” vision for how to do this, by using Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian results.
A Colossus on the Court – Mark Pulliam
A decade after the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016, veteran journalist James Rosen has released the second volume of his magisterial biography of the great jurist, entitled Scalia: Supreme Court Years, 1986-2001. The first volume, reviewed here by former Scalia clerk Ed Whelan, was widely acclaimed for its thoroughness, “sparkling prose,” and deep mastery of the legal intricacies that animated Scalia’s career—rare for a non-lawyer author.
Anatomy of an Insurrection
Anatomy of an Insurrection The recent (and ongoing) events in Minneapolis invoke historical parallels that are both instructive and alarming. Thanks to Instapundit (here), Ace of Spades HQ (here and here), Real Clear Policy (here), and Power Line! The recent events in Minneapolis are remarkable.
A Tale of Two Trends
As a pessimistic Boomer (and Big Law veteran) who channels Robert Bork, I regard the state of our politics in the MAGA era the same way Charles Dickens did in A Tale of Two Cities nearly two centuries ago: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” I try to temper my gloominess about the current zeitgeist by aiming for a perspective somewhere between Pollyanna and Jeremiah.
Amy Coney Barrett Listens to the Law
Original Article Posted By: Christopher L, 11/13/2025 1:57:02 PM Many Americans wonder if any jurist on the U.S. Supreme Court will ever be able to fill the shoes of the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed in 2016. President Trump has-so far-appointed three avowedly originalist justices with the potential to do so.
Amy Coney Barrett Listens to the Law
Many Americans wonder if any jurist on the U.S. Supreme Court will ever be able to fill the shoes of the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed in 2016. President Trump has—so far—appointed three avowedly originalist justices with the potential to do so.
The Managerial Tyranny of Boomer Environmentalism
As Steven F. Hayward lays out in his forum lead this month, the environmental legal and activist movement that started in the 1960s, and which is best known culturally for the first observance of Earth Day in 1970, is rapidly coming to an end in ways that its advocates are just beginning to realize.
A Post-Trump Era Common Sense? – Mark Pulliam
Political wisdom can be dispensed in small packages, as was the case with Thomas Paine’s succinct pamphlet, Common Sense, published in 1776. Many turgid “doorstop” books, in contrast, contain little in the way of lasting insights. Philip K.
Using and Misusing the Preventive State – Mark Pulliam
For nearly 60 years, Alan Dershowitz has enjoyed a remarkable career as a law professor and practicing criminal defense lawyer. In 1962, he graduated first in his class at Yale Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. After clerking for Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, he joined the Harvard Law School faculty, where he was granted tenure in 1967 at age 28, becoming the youngest full professor in the school’s history at that time.
Reimagining College – Sam Negus
These are trying times for higher education, and for more than temporary partisan reasons. Future demographic trends will exacerbate declining enrollment numbers. Facing budgetary shortfalls, colleges must cancel burdensome academic and athletic programs. Growing numbers of institutions will fail altogether, inflicting economic tragedy on the local communities that rely on them. There are no painless choices here; there will be losers in this readjustment process.
The Myth of Victimization – Mark Pulliam
History will harshly judge the United States’ prolonged vacillation over whether to honor the Fourteenth Amendment’s command of color-blindness by government actors in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, with the Supreme Court earning much of the blame. Brown vindicated Justice Harlan’s lonely dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which proclaimed that “our Constitution is color-blind.” Yet, it took the Justices 45 years, from Bakke in 1978 to SFFA v.
Plato in Syracuse – Ariel Helfer
I have heard it said that attempts have been made at staging productions of Plato’s dialogues, but that all have invariably flopped. I can’t vouch for the truth of that claim, but I can believe it. Intellectually, of course, Plato is gripping. And yet, as great a lover of Plato as I am, I fear that even I would fall asleep watching a dramatic reenactment of the Republic. Not enough “action,” in the conventional sense.
BOOK REVIEW: How Did Law Schools Become Lawless?
Legal academia has been long overdue for a book-length critique, and Ilya Shapiro’s Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elitesdelivers—released just as Trump’s election victory appears to signal a turning of the tide on wokeness. A good deal of scholarly ink has been spilled exposing the absurd degree of wokeness and suppression of debate in higher education generally, but not so much regarding law schools in particular.
Counter-Elites Assemble – Helen Dale
If I were to describe the four thousand people who attended the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship 2025 Conference last week—added to a who’s who of speakers—the phrase that comes to mind is “Counter-Elites Assemble,” with a nod to 2012’s The Avengers. Given London’s ExCeL is approximately the size and scale of Heathrow’s Terminal 5, the sense that one was in an airport minus the planes was palpable. The place is huge, and so for those three days were the personalities it (barely) contained.
Deregulating Legal Education – John O. McGinnis
Nearly every law school in the country is effectively under the thumb of the American Bar Association (ABA). The ABA’s power rests on its role as the recognized accreditor for law schools through the federal Department of Education. This official endorsement effectively determines whether students can obtain federal loans and whether state courts or bar associations will grant those schools the stamp of approval.
The Return of Political Economic Nationalism – Matt Wolfson
February 25, 2025 The populist turn in our politics is best understood as a revival of old categories of political economy. To many, President Donald Trump’s victory on November 5 seems to be a symbol of a major shift in the way our politics is practiced. But what is the nature of that shift? It is often seen as a turn away from “globalism” and toward a nationalism based on “race … religion, national origin” more at home in nineteenth-century continental Europe than America.
Avoiding Economic Pseudo-Science – Reuven Brenner
It’s commonplace today that governments should try to promote prosperity by building their economic policy around a family of “general theories” developed in the 1930s, known today as “macroeconomics.” Over the past century, this field has legitimized centralizing a wide range of governments’ spending decisions and central banks’ policies, even when it raised deficits and debts. However, it turns out that macroeconomics is no “science.” It has only been wearing its mask.
A Constitutional Rule on Federal Spending – Robert G. Natelson
February 20, 2025 USAID grants may have cracked constitutional spending limits. The new Department of Government Efficiency informs us that the federal government, through its Agency for International Development (AID), has been distributing taxpayer money for condoms in Gaza, DEI in Serbia and Ireland, and transgender stage productions in Columbia and Peru. (A longer list is here.) These revelations should renew questions about what constitutional limits there are on federal expenditures.
What Makes American Education Exceptional – Luke Foster
Vivek Ramaswamy’s much-discussed Christmas X post reflected several questionable assumptions, but it was right to link a culture’s highest aspirations and its education. One could be forgiven for watching the children’s movies popular in 1990s America and drawing the conclusion that what we most wanted was a life of ease, security and spontaneity—akin to the self-indulgence of an ancient tyrant.
Sparta's Splendid Isolationism – Scott Yenor
Sparta pursued a Sparta-first policy throughout most of its history, preserving its unique domestic institutions while giving citizens in distinctive military training. It drew back from pursuing a wider empire, for fear that what it took to build an empire would undermine its unique constitution.
Color-Blind Principles for Higher Education – Thomas Powers
In just one month, there has been a massive reset of civil rights politics in the United States that will reverberate for decades. We are still waiting to see how this is going to take precise shape in the context of higher education. Among the Trump administration’s many DEI-related executive orders, none yet outlines a detailed program to address progressive extremism in our colleges and universities (though several do touch on it directly or indirectly).
The Court and the Separation of Power – Chad Squitieri
Under Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court has demonstrated a willingness to enforce the Constitution’s separation-of-powers principles. This is welcome news for those who think that aspects of the administrative state run afoul of important constitutional lines separating the federal government’s three coequal branches. But not everyone has found the Roberts Court’s separation-of-powers jurisprudence to be cause for celebration.
The Constitution and Federal Spending – Robert G. Natelson
February 20, 2025 USAID grants may have cracked constitutional spending limits. The new Department of Government Efficiency informs us that the federal government, through its Agency for International Development (AID), has been distributing taxpayer money for condoms in Gaza, DEI in Serbia and Ireland, and transgender stage productions in Columbia and Peru. (A longer list is here.) These revelations should renew questions about what constitutional limits there are on federal expenditures.
How Did Law Schools Become Lawless?
Legal academia has been long overdue for a book-length critique, and Ilya Shapiro’s Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elitesdelivers—released just as Trump’s election victory appears to signal a turning of the tide on wokeness. A good deal of scholarly ink has been spilled exposing the absurd degree of wokeness and suppression of debate in higher education generally, but not so much regarding law schools in particular.
Liberal Realism and Liberal Idealism – Eric Kaufmann
Among classical liberals, some cleave to an idealistic understanding of human nature, while others—realists—believe that social forces help shape human nature. Samuel Gregg has penned an impressive, historically-informed defense of classical liberalism. I strongly agree that liberty in Western societies needs to be defended from contemporary threats from both left and right. Procedural liberalism, as embedded in the American constitution, is the only reasonable political-legal model for us today.
Is Iran Ready for a Nuclear Deal? – Max J. Prowant
Historians may well treat the year 2024 as the most politically consequential year in the Middle East since 2003, or even 1979. Over the past 12 to 15 months, a series of major events, each of which would have been heralded as a major development on its own, have together flipped the strategic board, changing the political trajectory of the region.
How Did Law Schools Become Lawless? – Mark Pulliam
Ilya Shapiro’s book is an eye-opening account of wokeness in the legal academy. Legal academia has been long overdue for a book-length critique, and Ilya Shapiro’s Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elitesdelivers—released just as Trump’s election victory appears to signal a turning of the tide on wokeness.
Preventing Regulation by Enforcement – John O. McGinnis & Leo J. Soh
America prides itself on being a land where individuals and businesses can plan their futures. Control over the design of your life is essential to liberty, and the nation prospers when people know that their enterprises and investments will be immune from arbitrary enforcement. However, in a world of wide-ranging regulations—covering everything from cryptocurrency markets to healthcare to environmental standards—the promise of legal predictability often goes unfulfilled.
The Originalist Basis of Birthright Citizenship – Michael D. Ramsey
Contrary to longstanding practice, President Trump’s recent executive order purports to reinterpret the Constitution to recognize constitutional birthright citizenship only for US-born children with at least one parent who is a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident. In particular, the order would deny citizenship to US-born children of lawful temporary visitors and of persons not lawfully present in the United States.
The Forgotten Meaning of the Citizenship Clause – Amy Swearer
The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.” For much of the last century, the prevailing academic consensus has been that these words reflect the nation’s adoption of the English common law rule of jus soli, a feudalistic principle under which a person’s citizenship is irrevocably dictated by his or her birth upon certain land rather than inherited by bloodline (jus sanguinis).
Beyond Legal Positivism – James R. Rogers
It’s official. The decades-long Hart–Dworkin debate, hashing out the relationship between law and morality, is over. This is just one take-away from University of Michigan Professor Scott Hershovitz’s winsome and entertaining new book, Law is a Moral Practice. Hershovitz explores the nature of law, authority and obligation, though he does not limit his discussion to inside-baseball arguments over legal positivism.
The End of Index-Fund Activism – Mark Pulliam
The politicization of corporate governance (and, derivatively, of the capital markets themselves) is a complicated subject. Treatments of the topic tend to be either eye-glazingly technical or disappointingly superficial.
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