The second Trump administration has sent soldiers into U.S. cities to quell peaceful protests, investigated President Trump’s political opponents, and attempted to silence cultural, educational and media institutions. It has instituted radical changes to the federal bureaucracy, shuttering entire federal agencies, laying off tens of thousands of government employees, and undermining agency independence. It has taken unprecedented actions to intimidate private law firms. And it has failed to comply with multiple court judgements that reject the legal bases of its policies. These developments raise profound questions about the state of the rule of law in the US.
Our expert panel will analyse the depth of these developments, their effects on democratic institutions, and the extent to which they can be reversed.
This event is jointly hosted by UCL Political Science and UCL Centre on US Politics.
Meet the speakers
Prof. Jeff Modisett is a Fulbright Fellow and Honorary Professor of Practice at UCL. He is also a lecturer at UCLA Law School, where his teaching focuses on the activities of state attorneys general. Professor Modisett has served as a federal prosecutor in the U.S.; as District Attorney of Marion County, Indiana, where he prosecuted the boxer Mike Tyson for sexual assault; and as Indiana Attorney General, where he helped negotiate the $206 billion tobacco settlement of the mid-1990s. He has also worked extensively in the private sector, in both law and technology.
Prof. Erin Delaney is the Leverhulme Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law and the Inaugural Director of the Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism at UCL. She has also served as Professor of Law at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and prior to that, she was a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter. She is Secretary General of the International Society of Public Law, as well as an elected member of the American Law Institute. Her research explores constitutionalism in comparative perspective, with a focus on federalism and judicial design in federal systems.
Prof. Sara Rinfret is a Professor of Public Administration at Northern Arizona University, where she directs the MPA program. She is also the incoming president of the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs and Administration or NASPAA. Professor Rinfret’s expertise lies in regulatory policy, environmental policy, women and public policy, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and public administration, topics on which she has published 10 books and over 40 articles. Professor Rinfret was also a Fulbright Scholar, at the University of Aarhus in 2016.
Chair: Dr. Colin Provost is Associate Professor of Public Policy in the UCL Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy.