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...FM: When did you know you wanted to go into law? CRS: My senior year in college I was torn between graduate school in English and law school. I thought that law would have more opportunities, and you could take a lot of different paths if you went into law. So not knowing exactly what to do, I took the path that seemed interesting and useful and also kept options open...
...FM: Why constitutional law? CRS: After law school, I worked for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice, which focused on constitutional questions. I also clerked for Thurgood Marshall and Benjamin Kaplan. Originally, constitutional law was the glamor field of law teaching. I thought that it would be really great if I had a chance to get involved in an area that helped define the nation’s understanding of itself and possibly make a contribution. [...] It was endlessly exciting and an area in which if you figure something out you could help the system...
...FM: What was clerking for Thurgood Marshall like? CRS: It was an adventure. There was frequent drama because there were cases involving abortion, voting rights, the meaning of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and more. Marshall himself was larger than life—not self-important. He was full of amazing stories about presidents and civil rights leaders and great figures in American history—many of whom he actually knew, such as the Kennedys, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon. Marshall was one of the world’s best storytellers and I would say that every...
...FM: If you could ask the Founding Fathers anything about the Constitution, what would you ask? CRS: I’d ask them if they wanted their original understanding of their phrases should bind posterity—if they think their original interpretation should bind people 100 and 200 years later. That is one of the great questions of constitutional law and it would be very fascinating to have a discussion with founders about that question...
...FM: What is the most pressing legal issue facing the U.S. today? CRS: One very pressing constitutional question is the authority of the president to act on his own. Under what circumstances can the president act unilaterally? We don’t know the answer to this. In terms of individual rights there are two obviously pressing questions—the question of discrimination on the basis of disability on the constitutional side and in the interpretation of Americans with Disabilities Act, and the question of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In terms of the horizon, the rights...