Title: "Free Speech as Civic Structure: A Comparative Analysis of How Courts and Culture Shape the Freedom of Speech"

Watch the lecture 

Professor Ronald Krotoszynski, John S. Stone Chairholder of Law and Director of Faculty Research, University of Alabama School of Law
Read his bio here.

Title: "Unamendable: Lessons from Failed Constitutional Amendments"

Watch the lecture.

Julie C. Suk, Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law

An interdisciplinary and comparative legal scholar researching equality at the intersection of law, history, sociology, and politics in the United States and globally.
Bio here.

Title: "Redistricting and Gerrymandering:  What's the Fuss?"
Watch the lecture.

Speaker:  Henry L. Chambers, Jr., Austin E. Owen Research Scholar & Professor of Law, University of Richmond School of Law

Title: "Rethinking Rights to Protect Democracy in the Digital Age: Reflections on Incitement and Inequality"

Watch the lecture.

Speaker:  Erika George, Quinney College of Law, The University of Utah

Distinguished Lecture Series Program - Erika George 3/25/2021

Title: "The Unwritten Constitutions of the United States"
Watch the lecture.

Speaker: Mark Graber, University System of Maryland Regents Professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law 

2019

Title: "The Fate of the Imperial Presidency"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker:  Deborah Pearlstein, Professor of Law and Co-Director, Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

2018

Title: "The Constitutional Power of Impeachment:  Congress's Ultimate 'Trump' "
Watch the lecture.
Speaker:  Professor Michael Paulsen, The University of St. Thomas School of Law

Title: "The Development of Constitutional Conservatism"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker: Professor Ken Kersch, Boston College
Note:  Audio heard best with headphones or external speakers.

2017

Title: "Free Speech in Public Schools: From Black Armbands to BONG HiTS FOR JESUS"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker: Professor Justin Driver, University of Chicago Law School

Title: "On the 150th Anniversary of the Reconstruction Amendments: The Two Thirteenth Amendments"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker: Professor Kurt Lash, University of Illinois Law School

2016

Title: "Same-Sex Marriage and Backlash: Constitutionalism Through the Lens of Consensus and Conflict"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker: Professor Reva Siegel, Yale Law School

Title: "Scrutinizing Polygamy after Hobby Lobby and Obergefell"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker: Maura Strassberg, professor of law, Drake Law School

2013

Title: "Three Centuries of Latinos in the U.S.: The Cyclical Dynamics of Nation-Building, Citizenship, and Legal Personhood"
Speaker: Laura E Gómez, vice dean and professor of law, UCLA School of Law

Title: "Amending the U.S. Constitution: The Surprising Reasons Why it Should Remain Difficult"
Speaker: Aziz Huq, professor, University of Chicago Law School

Title: "The Constitution and Child Protection from Religious Actors"
Speaker: Marci Hamilton, Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

2012

Title: "Islam and Constitutionalism in Egypt's New Constitution"
Speaker: Nathan J. Brown, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University

Title: "The Transformation of Judicial Restraint"
Speaker: Pamela Karlan, professor, Stanford Law School

2011

Title: "The Executive Unbound: After the Madisonian Republic"
Speaker: Eric Posner, professor, University of Chicago Law School

Title: "Charting the Future: Equality at the End of the Civil Rights Consensus"

Speaker: Guy-Uriel E. Charles, 2024 Coif Distinguished Visitor; Charles Ogletree, Jr. Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School

Title: " 'Scandalized?': Rethinking Presidential Scandals in the Modern Era"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker:  Timothy Naftali, Faculty Scholar at Columbia's Institute for Global Politics, Columbia University

Title: "Saving the Constitution"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker: Jamal Greene, Dwight Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

Title: "Covering the Courts: What Role Does the Supreme Court Press Play in Protecting the Constitution?"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker:  Dahlia Lithwick, U.S Supreme Court correspondent, Slate magazine

Title: "The Counter-Playbook:  Resisting the Populist Assault on Separation of Powers"
Watch the lecture. 

Speaker Stephen Gardbaum, Stephen Yeazell Endowed Chair in Law, UCLA School of Law
2020 Constitution Day program

2019 - (Combined with a fall symposium program)

Title: "Democracy and Dysfunction"
Watch the symposium.

Speakers:  Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, Yale Law School; Sanford Levinson, W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law and Professor of Government, University of Texas School of Law; Francis H. Buckley, George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University; Mark S. Kende, Director of the Drake Constitutional Law Center; James Madison Chair in Constitutional Law and Professor of Law, Drake University Law School; Leah Litman, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School; David Pozen, Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; Miguel Schor, Associate Director of the Drake Constitutional Law Center and Professor of Law, Drake University Law School; and Franita Tolson, Professor of Law, University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

2018

Title: "Our Polarized Constitution:  Judicial Review in the Cycles of Constitutional Time"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker: Professor Jack Balkin, Yale Law School

2017

Title: "Free Speech on Campus"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker: Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, University of California-Berkeley School of Law

2016

Title: "Guns, Speech, and Sex: The Rise of Constitutional Extremism"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker: Professor Mary Anne Franks, University of Miami School of Law

2015 

Title: "Policing in the 21st Century"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker: Tracey L. Meares, Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law, Yale University

2014 

Title: "Re-Articulating the Harm of Discrimination: An Examination of Brown v. Board of Education at 60"
Sept. 15, 2014
Speaker: Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Charles M. and Marion J. Kierscht Professor of Law, University of Iowa School of Law

2013 

Title: "The Fundamental Transformation in the Law and Practice of Modern Warfare"
Speaker: Richard H. Pildes, Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law

2012 

Title: "On Constitutional Disobedience"
Speaker: Louis Michael Seidman, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center

2011 

Title: "Constitutional Rights Ten Years After 9/11: Has Everything Changed?"
Speaker: David Cole, professor, Georgetown University Law Center

Title: "Climate Change, the Environment, and Constitutions."

Speakers: 

"Rights of Nature: Fact and Fiction"

James Salzman, Donald Bren Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law with joint appointments at the Bren School and UCLA Law School Watch the presentation here

"Speaking up to Stop the Climate Crisis: Environmental Justice and the First Amendment"                                                                           Abre' Conner, Lecturer, UC-Davis, Director of Environmental and Climate Justice Center, NAACP

Watch the presentation here

"Climate Indignities: Why Dignity Matters in Climate Litigation"                     

Erin Daly, Professor of Law and Director, Dignity Rights Clinic, Widener University Delaware Law School

Watch the presentation here

"Anti-Constitutional Climate Claims"                                                         

Jonathan H. Adler, Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and Director, Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law, Case Western Reserve School of Law

Watch the presentation here

"Commons, Climate and the Constitution"                                                     

Jerry Anderson, Dean and Richard M. and Anita Calkins Distinguished Professor of Law, Drake Law School                                                Watch the presentation here

Title: "The Scales of Justice Tilt Right: Abortion, Affirmative Action, and the Administrative State"

Speakers: Teresa Stanton Collett, Professor of Law; Director, Prolife Center, University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minneapolis); Mark S. Kende, James Madison Chair Professor in Constitutional Law; Director, Drake Constitutional Law Center, Drake Law School; Ilya Somin, Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University; Vinay Harpalani, Professor of Law; Lee & Leon Karelitz Chair in Evidence & Procedure, University of New Mexico School of Law; Ilan Wurman, Associate Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University; Nicholas Parrillo, William K. Townsend Professor of Law and Professor of History, Yale Law School.

Principal sponsorship of the Constitutional Law Symposium provided by the Nathan S. McCay, LW’80, Endowment.  Additional support provided by the law firm of Hastings, Gartin & Boettger, LLP, Ames.

Watch the lecture.

Title: "The Constitution and Democratic Erosion"

Speakers:  Edward B. Foley, Charles W. Ebersold and Florence Whitcomb Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law; Director, Election Law at Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law; Andrea Katz, Associate Professor of Law, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law; David Landau, Mason Ladd Professor and Associate Dean for International Programs, Florida State University School of Law; James R. Stoner, Jr., Hermann Moyse, Jr., Professor of Political Science and Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute, Louisiana State University; and Jeffrey Tulis, Professor of Government and Professor of Law, The University of Texas at Austin.

This symposium was dedicated to the memory of Congressman Neal Smith, LW'50, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 101.  Congressman Smith's efforts provided foundational support for the Center and he continued to be a loyal supporter his entire life.

Watch the symposium.

Title: "Reexamining Pragmatism in Constitutional Interpretation"

Speakers:  Brian Butler, Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina (Asheville); Daniel Farber, Sho Sato Professor of Law; Faculty Director, Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment, University of California, Berkeley; Mark Kende, Director of the Constitutional Law Center; James Madison Chair in Constitutional Law; Professor of Law, Drake University Law School; Linda C. McClain, Robert Kent Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law; and Robert Tsai, Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law.

Watch the symposium.

"Democracy and Dysfunction"
(Actually took place September 21, 2019)

Speakers:  Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, Yale Law School; Sanford Levinson, W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law and Professor of Government, University of Texas School of Law; Francis H. Buckley, George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University; Mark S. Kende, Director of the Drake Constitutional Law Center; James Madison Chair in Constitutional Law and Professor of Law, Drake University Law School; Leah Litman, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School; David Pozen, Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; Miguel Schor, Associate Director of the Drake Constitutional Law Center and Professor of Law, Drake University Law School; and Franita Tolson, Professor of Law, University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

Watch the symposium.

2019 

Title: "Is it Time to Amend the Constitution?"

Watch the symposium.

Speakers:  Richard Albert, William Stamps Farish Professor of Law, University of Texas School of Law; Richard S. Kay, Wallace Stevens Professor of Law Emeritus and Oliver Ellsworth Research Professor, University of Connecticut School of Law; Sanford Levinson, W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law and Professor of Government, University of Texas School of Law and Lisa L. Miller, Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University.

2018 

Title: "Is Constitutional Democracy Endangered in the U.S. and Abroad?"
Watch the symposium. 

Speakers:  Tom Ginsburg, Leo Spitz Professor of International Law, Ludwig and Hilde Wolf Research Scholar, and Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago Law School; Elizabeth Foley, Professor of Law, Florida International University College of Law; John Reitz, Edward Carmody Professor of Law and Director of Graduate Programs and Visiting Scholars, University of Iowa College of Law; and David Stebenne, Professor of History and Law, Ohio State University

2017 

Title: "President Obama's Constitutional Law Legacy"
Watch the symposium.

Speakers: Taunya Lovell Banks, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law; Eric Berger, Nebraska College of Law; John Eastman, Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law; Ambassador Stephen Rapp, The Hague Institute for Global Justice and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for Prevention of Genocide; Ilya Somin, George Mason University

2016 

Title: "War Powers and the Constitution: 15 Years After 9/11"
Watch the symposium.

Speakers: Stephen Griffin, Tulane Law School; Saikrishna Prakash, University of Virginia School of Law; Stephen Vladeck, American University Washington College of Law; and Mariah Zeisberg, University of Michigan

2015 

Title: "Eyes and Ears Everywhere? Privacy in an Age of Government and Technological Intrusion"

Speakers: Geoffrey R. Stone, University of Chicago Law School; Laura Donohue, Georgetown; Gabriel Schoenfeld, Hudson Institute; and Nadine Strossen, New York Law School

2014 

Title: "The U.S. Supreme Court’s Obamacare Decision and Its Significance for the 50th Anniversary of LBJ’s Great Society"

Speakers: Robert Dallek, Stanford University Program; Neil S. Siegel, Duke University Law School; Jonathan H. Adler, Case Western Reserve University School of Law; Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law School; William E. Forbath, University of Texas School of Law; and Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Harvard Law School

2013 

Title: "The U.S. Constitution and Political Dysfunction: Is There a Connection?"

Speakers: Sanford V. Levinson, University of Texas School of Law; Norman Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research; Richard Hasen, University of California, Irvine; John McGinnis, Northwestern University School of Law; Lori Ringhand, University of Georgia School of Law; and Brenna Findley, legal counsel to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad

2012 

Title: "Constitutionalism and the Poor"

Speakers: Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law Center; John Powell, University of California, Berkeley; Frank Michelman, Harvard Law School; Julie Nice, University of San Francisco School of Law; Ilya Shapiro, Cato Institute; and The Hon. Mark S. Cady, chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court

2011 

Title: "Debating the Living Constitution"

Speakers: David Strauss, University of Chicago Law School; Keith Whittington, Princeton University; Rebecca Brown, University of Southern California School of Law; and Wil Waluchow, McMaster University

2010 

Title: "The Same-Sex Marriage Divide"

Speakers: Douglas Allen, Simon Fraser University; Andrew Koppelman, Northwestern Law School; Mark Strasser, Capital University Law School; Lynn Wardle, BYU J. Reuben Clark Law School; Lee Badgett, University of Massachusetts; and Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy

2009 

Title: "Global Perspectives on Religion, the State, and Constitutionalism"

Speakers: Abdullah An'Nain, Emory Law School; Rick Garnett, Notre Dame Law School; Frank Ravitch, Michigan State College of Law; Laura Jenkins, University of Cincinnati; Tom Farr, Georgetown School of Foreign Science; and Jeremy Gunn, director of the ACLU Religion and Law Project in D.C.

2008 

Title: "The Forgotten Constitutional Amendments"

Speakers: Randy Barnett, Georgetown Law School; Daniel Farber, University of California, Berkeley; Kurt Lash, Loyola Law School Los Angeles; Michael Kent Curtis, Wake Forest Law School; Rebecca Zietlow, University of Toledo Law School; and David Bogen, University of Maryland Law School

2007 
Title: "The 'Undemocratic' American Constitution"

Speakers: Sanford V. Levinson, University of Texas School of Law; Heather Gerken, Yale Law School; Neal Devins, William and Mary School of Law; Donald Horowitz, Duke Law School; and Saikrishna B. Prakash, University of San Diego Law School

2006 
Title: "The Role of Courts in Social Change"

Speakers: Mark Tushnet, Georgetown University Law Center; Jane Schacter, Stanford Law School; John Eastman, Chapman University School of Law and director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Claremont Institute; Gerald Torres, University of Texas Law School; and Gerald Rosenberg, University of Chicago

2023

Title: "The Challenge for Originalism from Precedent"

Watch the lecture.

Michael Rappaport, Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Professor of Law; Director, Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism, University of San Diego School of Law.

2020

Title: "Is Iowa a Liberal Democracy?"
Watch the lecture.
Professor James A. Gardner, University at Buffalo School of Law, The State University of New York

2020 Judge James Grant Iowa Constitution Lecture program

2018

Title: "Two Tenets of Religious Liberty in the Constitutions of Iowa"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker:  Professor Allan Vestal, Drake University Law School

2015

Title: "Exploring the Original Meaning of Article I, Section 6 of the Iowa Constitution"
Watch the lecture.
Speaker: The Hon. Edward Mansfield, Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court

2014

Title: "Does the Iowa Constitution Provide a Remedy in Damages to Individuals Who Have Been Harmed by its Violation?"
Speaker: Roxanne Conlin, Esquire

2014

Title: "State Constitutional Law in Iowa: Past, Present and Future"
Speaker: The Hon. Brent R. Appel, Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court

2013

Title: "More Alike Than Different? A Comparison of the U.S. and Iowa Constitutions"
Speaker: Sanford V. Levinson, W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair, University of Texas School of Law

2012
"A Pioneer’s Constitution: How Iowa’s Constitutional History Uniquely Shapes Our Pioneering Tradition in Recognizing Civil Rights and Civil Liberties"
Speaker: The Hon. Mark S. Cady, Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court

Read Justice Cady's Drake Law Review article.

Reception in Celebration of the 19th Amendment Centennial
"100 Years after the 19th Amendment: Their Legacy, and Our Future"
January 23, 2020

Speakers: Kristin Corey, Office of the Status of Women, Iowa Department of Human Rights; Roxanne Barton Conlin, LW '66, Partner, Roxanne Conlin & Associates, P.C.

Watch the reception here.

International Bar Association Rule of Law Town Hall
November 21, 2019

Speakers:  Carol Hunter, Executive Editor of the Des Moines Register; Mark S. Kende, Director of the Drake Constitutional Law Center, James Madison Chair in Constitutional Law and Professor of Law, Drake University Law School; Hon. James "Jim" Leach, Former Republican Member of Congress, Iowa; Hon. Edward Mansfield, Justice, Iowa Supreme Court; Homer Moyer (moderator), Past Chair, IBA Rule of Law Forum

Watch the town hall.