PUBLISHED:September 03, 2011

Conference examines constitutionality of health care law, Sept. 16

Leading legal scholars will discuss the ongoing constitutional litigation over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) during a Sept. 16 conference at Duke Law School.

The conference will get underway at 9:00 a.m. in Room 3043 of the Law School, located on Duke University’s West Campus. All panel discussions are free and open to the public. Parking is available at the Bryan Center.

“Some of the most prominent constitutional law and health law scholars in the United States will gather at Duke Law School to analyze the constitutionality of an enormously consequential federal law — the Affordable Care Act — whose legal fate will soon lie in the hands of U.S. Supreme Court. The arguments aired at this conference will be immediately relevant to the justices' impending consideration of the law’s validity,” said conference organizer Neil Siegel. A Duke University professor of law and political science who has focused his recent academic scholarship and public commentary on the ACA’s constitutionality, Siegel is co-director of the Program in Public Law, which is sponsoring the event.

In addition to Siegel, Duke Law Professors Stuart Benjamin, James Boyle, Guy-Uriel Charles, Arti Rai, Barak Richman, Stephen Sachs, and Ernest Young will share or comment upon recent scholarship on the constitutional underpinnings of health care reform. Also participating will be other top scholars writing on the subject, including Matthew Adler, Jack Balkin, Erwin Chemerinsky, Robert Cooter, Mark Hall, Gillian Metzger, Theodore Ruger, and Ilya Somin.

For more information, contact Forrest Norman at (919) 613-8565.