June 4th, 2025 J. Joel Alicea, St. Robert Bellarmine Professor of Law and Director of the Center for the Constitution and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition at Catholic Law testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Tuesday, June 3, during a public hearing titled “The Supposedly “Least Dangerous Branch”: District...

Washington, D.C., May 20, 2025 The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) today announced the appointment of nine new public members and nine new senior fellows, whose terms begin on July 1, 2025. Public Members: Senior Fellows: ACUS welcomes these distinguished new members and thanks them for volunteering their...

Congratulations to CIT Director J. Joel Alicea, who was the recipient of this year’s Professor of the Year Award at the April 25th Columbus Awards Night hosted by the Catholic Law community. This marks the second year in a row that CIT faculty have taken home the top honor—last year,...

CIT Fellow Derek Webb, who recently joined the faculty of Catholic Law as an Assistant Professor of Law in 2024, was awarded “Outstanding Professor of First Year Classes” at the Columbus Awards on April 25th. The Columbus Awards celebrate and honor the outstanding contributions of students, faculty, and staff to...

Catholic Law’s Professor Joel Alicea was recently interviewed by CBS News to discuss the Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. In that case, the Court established an exception to the president’s authority to remove executive officers. The interview explored whether the Supreme Court might revisit—and potentially overturn—this nearly century-old...

Popular legal podcast Advisory Opinions came to campus last week, with Sarah Isgur (Senior Editor,The Dispatch) and David French (Columnist, New York Times) hosting CIT’s own Prof. J. Joel Alicea and D.D.C. Judge Trevor McFadden for a wide-ranging, high-spirited conversation that spanned topics from the importance of law students studying originalist methodology, the...

Prof. Chad Squitieri testified before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs on Wednesday, December 18 on “Restoring Congressional Power over VA after Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.” “The Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright brought about a welcome change to federal administrative law, and the decision should be celebrated for at least two...

“Modern separation-of-powers jurisprudence—including key decisions decided during the Supreme Court’s 2023-24 term—has been critiqued on the grounds that it constitutes “judicial aggrandizement,” i.e., that it impermissibly empowers federal courts to decide separation-of-powers questions better left to Congress and the President. This “judicial aggrandizement” critique goes too far to the extent...

“For over 125 years, jurists and scholars who have championed judicial restraint have looked back to James Bradley Thayer’s 1893 Harvard Law Review article, The Origin and Scope of the American Doctrine of Constitutional Law, as the seminal authority for the rule that courts should presume the constitutionality of a...

Catholic Law’s Center for the Constitution and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT) announced today the judges who will be participating in its Visiting Jurist Program during the 2024-2025 academic year: Judge Thomas M. Hardiman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Judge S. Kyle Duncan of the...

On Thursday, September 26th, the Center for the Constitution and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT) hosted a conversation with Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh of the United States Supreme Court. The event, moderated by CIT Director J. Joel Alicea, and attended by faculty, students, and alumni of Catholic Law, marks the...

A Permanent, Expanded Center CIT is delighted to share that we have secured a $7.02 million donation that will ensure the long-term future of CIT and allow us to convert CIT into a permanent center at the Columbus School of Law. As you might recall, the donor who gave the initial...

CIT is pleased to announced that Professor Jenn Mascott will be joining the Center in the Fall as Senior Fellow. Professor Mascott’s scholarship focuses on administrative and constitutional law, theories of constitutional and statutory interpretation, and the constitutional structural separation of powers. In addition to serving as a senior fellow...

CIT is pleased to announce the addition of CIT Fellow Professor Derek A. Webb. Professor Webb writes and teaches in the areas of constitutional law, federal courts, civil and criminal procedure, legal history, and American political thought. His articles have appeared in the University of Notre Dame Law Review, Law...