Pandemic Diaries

IJ’s Center for Judicial Engagement (CJE) has published pieces in a great many places over the years. In 2019, we went a step further and launched our very own blog. In these days of social media, people sometimes forget about blogs, but they remain a powerful way to reach readers, unfiltered by outside editors.

As loyal Liberty & Law readers know, CJE educates the public about the proper role of the courts in enforcing constitutional limits on the size and scope of government. The CJE blog highlights examples of judicial engagement in action—and its debut was perfectly timed. 

When the pandemic made it impossible to reach CJE’s target audience of law students and members of the bench and bar through in-person talks and conferences, we stepped up our blogging outreach, often about issues of judicial engagement and the pandemic itself. As courts wrestled with sudden, drastic COVID-19 restrictions, IJ attorneys offered rapid yet measured analysis of how courts can protect economic liberty and property rights during a public health emergency. This included an in-depth discussion of relevant case law, including the 1905 Supreme Court case Jacobson v. Massachusetts: We describe how Jacobson is misused and how it ties to the historic economic liberty decision of the same year, Lochner v. New York.

These discussions are not just for law students and judges, though. You, too, can participate! Visit ij.org/cje to check out our latest blog posts and to subscribe to our popular Short Circuit newsletter and podcast, which recap the most interesting and important federal appellate decisions addressing individual liberty.