President Trump has launched his second term in office with an all-out attack on constitutional norms and civil rights, and attacks on minority groups. And he has sought to neutralize the sources of potential opposition, attacking the media, lawyers, universities, and the courts. David Cole, former National Legal Director of the ACLU asks if constitutional democracy survive? In what condition? And how America’s civil society institutions have responded.
David Cole is the Hon. George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy at Georgetown Law, and former National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. He writes regularly for the New York Review of Books and is legal affairs correspondent for The Nation. He is the author or editor of ten books, including No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System, and Engines of Liberty: How Citizen Movements Succeed.
David has litigated many pathbreaking cases in the Supreme Court, including Texas v Johnson, which extended First Amendment protection to flag burning; Bostock v Clayton County, which established that Title VII bans discrimination on the basis of transgender status and sexual orientation; and National Rifle Association v Vullo, which held that government officials cannot use their regulatory authority to coerce private parties into blacklisting a disfavoured political organisation. He has received many awards for his civil liberties work.