PLAP 381 Constitutional Interpretation PLAP 885 Theory of Constitutional Interpretation
Q: Where did you attend college and what was your worst college experience?
A: I attended the University of California, Santa Barbara. I earned my B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. there. And my worst experience was taking a yearlong History of Philosophy class. In the first semester I had an A, in the second semester I had a different T.A. and I got a C. And he justified that on the grounds that I really deserved a B+ and the A and the C averaged out. In my last two years of college I had all A's.
Q: What did you do you became becoming a professor?
A: I was always a student, so I went through my Ph.D. and started teaching at age 25.
Q: Where did you teach before here?
A: I taught for two years at a small liberal arts school, the University of Puget Sound in Seattle, Wash.
Q: What brought you to U.Va.?
A: I wanted to come east, having grown up on the west coast.
Q: I know you've written a couple of books. Which one is your favorite and why?
A: I think my favorite is "Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics," now in its sixth edition. I wrote it after working for Justice Brennan for two years, to make the court accessible to undergraduate students. It's based on a lot of archival research as well as interviews with justices.
Q: What's your all-time favorite book?
A: I don't know that I have a favorite book. Certainly, Ralph Waldo Emerson continues to impress -- as he said, "it takes a creative reader as well as a writer." Unlike my student days, I now enjoy most working on a new book.
Q: If you could travel to one place in the world, where would you go, and who would you take with you?
A: I would go back to Myanmar (Burma) and take my son and two daughters because of its form of Buddhism, amid many natural beauties and stunning architecture. At the same time, it is one of the most repressive regimes in the world and thus drives home the importance of preserving our freedoms.
Q: What is the most unique food you've ever eaten?
A: Some part of a fish in a Kaiseki dinner in Japan that I could not guess what it was and could barely stomach.
Q: Who is your favorite Supreme Court justice and why?
A: Justice Robert H. Jackson because of insights and elegant prose. His unpublished opinion in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) is a commendable essay on promises and problems of constitutional interpretation.
Q: What is your favorite Supreme Court case and why?
A: Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), especially Justice Harlan's concurring opinion, because in declaring a constitutional right of privacy, it spoke to so many of the issues and challenges in the late 20th and 21st centuries.
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