WHIP… Ugh. There was not a lot of virtus tentamine gaudet going on as I packed my bags to fly to Washington D.C. for the semester. Spending a semester in D.C. had seemed like a great idea my freshman year. In fact, when I was an ambitious, career-minded high school senior trying to figure out...
Author: Chelsea Bratten (Chelsea Bratten)
Anything but balanced
Clear writing comes from clear thinking. Unfortunately, at times the arguments Mark Tushnet presents in his new book “In the Balance: Law and Politics in the Roberts Court” are quite murky. “In the Balance” follows the ascension of Justices John Roberts and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. It then focuses on how the Roberts...
Politicians won’t save us
If you had told me four years ago that running for political office was the least effective way to impact long-term public policy, you would have received a skeptical stare. Nevertheless, when Republican former Michigan State Rep. Leon Drolet announced that politicians are the least effective conduits of social change during his guest lecture on...
Book review: ‘Father, Son, and Constitution’
“Given their roots in Texas and their embrace of that state and much of its culture, Thomas Campbell Clark and his son William Ramsey Clark probably could have become oil men, ruthless and wealthy.” So begins Alexander Wohl’s biography of Tom and Ramsey Clark. While that statement is Wohl’s first opinion, it certainly will not...