Gerald Rosenberg on The 2012 US Elections and the Courts

The University of Chicago Center in Beijing
20th floor, Culture Plaza
No. 59A Zhong Guan Cun Street
Haidian District Beijing 100872

Professor Gerald Rosenberg examined the relationship between the composition of the individuals and groups that supported the winner of the November 6, 2012, U.S. presidential election and the U.S. Supreme Court.  What influences will that electoral coalition have on judicial nominees, the issues the U.S. Supreme Court will face in the next four years, and the ideological direction of its decisions?  What do these influences suggest about the independence of the U.S. Supreme Court?  The independence of the U.S. Supreme Court is understood to be essential for the rule of law. Why is this the case? What are the formal and informal mechanisms that support judicial independence in the United States?  How well, and under what conditions, do they work? How are they influenced by elections?

Gerald N. Rosenberg is Associate Professor of Political Science and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago with interests in American politics and public law.  Trained as both a political scientist and a lawyer, he earned a master’s degree in Politics and Philosophy from Oxford University, a law degree from the University of Michigan, and a doctorate in Political Science from Yale University.  During the 2002-3 academic year, he taught at the Law School of Xiamen University in China as a Fulbright Professor.

At Renmin University’s Suzhou campus, Gerald Rosenberg spoke to mostly Law School students. His main focus is on the use of courts to further the rights and interests of the relatively disadvantaged. His book The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? overturns a generation of conventional wisdom about the impact of court decisions. The book was awarded the Wadsworth Publishing Award by the American Political Science Association for making a lasting contribution to the field of law and courts.

In addition to his scholarship, Rosenberg received a Quantrell Award for his teaching and four graduate students whose work he has supervised have won six national awards.  Besides his year at the Law School of Xiamen University, Rosenberg has taught at Yale University, Northwestern University School of Law (where he served as the Jack N. Pritzker Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law) and was a Visiting Fellow in the Law Program of the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.

Professor Rosenberg’s trip to China included 5 speaking engagements.  On November 8, he was hosted by the Law School at Shandong University in Jinan, part of the programming of the UChicago-Shanda American Culture Exchange Center.  November 9, he spoke to students at Renmin University’s Suzhou campus.  The University of Shanghai for Science and Technology’s American Culture Center invited him to speak on November 12 and Xi’an International University hosted his November 15 talk.

(Lectures in China by Gerald Rosenberg were sponsored by the American Culture Exchange Center, a joint project between the University of Chicago and Shandong University.  This series was funded, in part, by the American Center for Educational Exchange.)