Dear Colleagues:

Greetings, and I hope that you and yours are healthy and safe in this better but not quite better enough time for the world, our nation, our community, and Case Western Reserve University.

I write to announce the first “Friday Lunch” of the academic year, one of the fine traditions of our series, and a mostly filled-out schedule that I think looks pretty exciting. But I must begin with disappointing news about how we will meet.

Students have returned and virtually all classes are now planning to meet in person. But the spread of the Delta variant and somewhat expected news that protection through vaccination appears to decline over time still leave reason for caution. So I regret having to announce that the “Friday Lunch” will start off the semester in “virtual” mode, with Zoom-only meetings.

The university expects that those who attend classes and in-person meetings will be vaccinated and will wear masks. Students and faculty in classes also are not supposed to eat, though the guidance is that they may drink carefully (e.g. through straws or sipping with quickly raised-and-lowered masks). The guidance is that “masks may be removed indoors while dining,” but people should “maintain social distance from others during the meal.” It seems to me that if anything resembling a normal crowd attends a Friday Lunch, any eating or drinking will be in a much more crowded space than that anticipates – far more so, for example, than in a normal restaurant, or any of the university dining facilities. The participants are likely to be quite widely vaccinated, but also mostly in more vulnerable categories. I consulted with a group of longtime and frequent participants in the discussions, and they recommended that we start off cautiously.

I expect that in a few weeks we will know more, and perhaps it will be good news. So we may revisit whether we can meet in person later in September. Please e-mail me if you have suggestions about other approaches – for instance, does it make sense to do “Friday Lunch” without, well, lunch? My e-mail is joseph.white@case.edu.

This Week’s Program!

Universities are not the only organizations which begin their years as the leaves are turning. That is also when the Supreme Court begins its new term. So for many years we have begun Fall semester with our distinguished Law School faculty talking about what the Supreme Court did in the term just finished and what we might expect from the term that begins on October 1. It is a great pleasure to welcome back Professors Adler and Entin to continue the tradition.

The biggest question about the Court going forward is how having Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg replaced by Justice Amy Coney Barrett will shape decisions. It is widely agreed that Justice Barrett’s appointment solidifies conservative dominance of the Court,and by making Chief Justice Roberts no longer the pivotal vote may change the pattern in which Roberts has crafted narrow decisions on controversial issues, sometimes siding with the then-4-person “liberal” bloc. So one obvious question is how that worked out after Barrett joined the Court. It will be interesting to see how our experts interpret the mix of decisions in the past term, which included some that disappointed conservatives – especially upholding the Affordable Care Act in California v. Texas – but also a series of decisions, especially regarding election rules, unions, money as “speech” and religion that must have made conservatives much happier.

How the Court shapes policy depends, however, not just on its leanings but on the cases that come its way and which it accepts. So we might expect the Barrett appointment to be more significant in this coming term, because the term could have much more controversial cases both by choice (what the Court decided to hear with its different membership) and luck. At a minimum, the Supremes after substantial internal debate decide to accept a major gun-rights case and have accepted a very serious challenge to the parameters set in Roe v. Wade.

Please join Professors Adler and Entin for their wise but sometimes different perspectives on the law and the Court, what has happened and what might happen next.

Signing In

This semester’s discussions will begin at 12:30 p.m., the usual time. The meeting will be set up as from Noon to 2:00 p.m., so people are not all signing in at the same time and to allow for the discussion to run a bit long. Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. Every Monday the same information will be posted on our website: fridaylunch.case.edu.

If you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. This week’s link for registration is:

https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcucOyhqDsqE9Dnj4V92ALRw4e916cVDRZW

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Please e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about how the Zoom version of the Friday Lunch will work or any other suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.

Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,

Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies

About Our Guests

Jonathan H. Adler is the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and and Director, Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, where he teaches courses in environmental, administrative, and constitutional law.

Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011), and over a dozen book chapters. His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2016 study identified Professor Adler as the most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law under age 50.

Professor Adler is a contributing editor to National Review Online and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, “The Volokh Conspiracy.” A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS “Newshour with Jim Lehrer” and NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” to the Fox News Channel and “Entertainment Tonight.”

Jonathan Entin has taught Constitutional Law; Administrative Law; Courts, Public Policy and Social Change; and a Supreme Court Seminar. Before joining the faculty in 1984, he clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (when she was on the U.S. Court of Appeals) and practiced in Washington with Steptoe & Johnson. The recipient of several teaching awards and a former co-editor of the Journal of Legal Education, he is at work on a book about equal protection. Among his recent publications are “Getting What You Pay For: Judicial Compensation and Judicial Independence,” Utah Law Review (2011) and “Responding to Political Corruption: Some Institutional Considerations,” Loyola University Chicago Law Journal (2011).

Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

September 3: Cleveland’s Next Mayor? With Nick Castele, Politics and Governance reporter, Ideastream.

September 10: Ohio’s Redistricting. With Mark Salling, Ph.D., Senior Fellow and Research Associate, Northern Ohio Data Information Service and Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs.

September 17: After the Pandemic… A roundtable discussion with Maxwell J. Mehlman, J.D., Distinguished University Professor and Arthur E. Petersilge Professor of Law; Mark Turner, Ph.D., Institute Professor and Professor of Cognitive Science; and Joe White, Ph.D., Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy.

September 24: Civilian Oversight of Police. With Ayesha Bell Hardaway, J.D., Associate Professor of Law and Deputy Monitor, Cleveland Police Monitoring Team.

October 1: What’s Happening in the Labor Market? With Bruce Fallick, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Research, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

October 8: A Conversation with Scott Cowen, Ph.D. President Emeritus and Distinguished University Chair, Tulane University, and Interim President of Case Western Reserve University. (October 1, 2020 – June 30, 2021)

October 15: TBA

October 22: The Biden Administration’s Immigration Policies. With Aleksandar Cuic, J.D., Director of the Immigration Clinic, Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic Center, CWRU School of Law.

October 29: TBA

November 5: Redeveloping Buckeye/Woodhill. With Taryn Gress, MSSA, Strategic Director, and Debbie Wilber, Assistant Director, National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities.

November 12: TBA

November 19: TBA

December 3: President Biden’s Trade Policy: Continuity and Change. With Juscelino Colares, J.D., Schott-van den Eynden Professor of Business Law.