Executive Authoritarianism

A Celebration of Professor David Driesen’s “The Specter of Dictatorship”

Friday, November 12, 2021 

Melanie Gray Ceremonial Courtroom | Dineen Hall, Syracuse University College of Law

Presented by Syracuse Law Review

Co-sponsored by the American Constitution Society and the Federalist Society.

7:45 – 8:45 a.m. | Breakfast in the Levy Atrium

8:45 – 9:00 a.m. | Introductions

Welcome, Dean Craig M. Boise

            Introduction to The Specter of Dictatorship, Professor David M. Driesen

9 – 10:30 a.m. | Panel One: The Unitary Executive, Autocracy, and American History 

Moderator: Professor Kristen Barnes, Syracuse Law

  • Jed Shugerman, Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law
  • Jennifer Mascott, Assistant Professor of Law and Co-Executive Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
  • Noah Rosenblum, Assistant Professor of Law, New York University School of Law

10:45 a.m. – noon | Panel Two: The Supreme Court’s Embrace of Executive Power 

Moderator: Professor Mark P. Nevitt, Syracuse Law

  • Julian Mortenson, James G. Phillipp Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
  • Tom Keck, Professor of Political Science and Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University
  • Heidi Kitrosser, Robins Kaplan Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School

noon – 1 p.m. | Lunch

1 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. | Panel Three: Reforming Presidentialism: Comparative and Domestic Perspectives 

Moderator: Professor C. Cora True-Frost, Syracuse Law

  • Andrea Katz, Associate Professor of Law, Washington University School of Law in St. Louis
  • Cem Tecimer, Harvard Law School
  • Robert Tsai, Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law

2:15 – 2:30 p.m. | Concluding Remarks from Professor Driesen