James Wilson Institute

Founded by @HPArkes_, JWI teaches those principles of law that furnished a guide to the American Founders as they set about framing the Constitution.

[Jeremy Christiansen @TradVat2]

Many congratulations to my former @RegentLaw student, Nathaniel Price, on being named a @JamesWilsonInst fellow!
https://t.co/xVTXGNyG30

[James Wilson Institute @JamesWilsonInst]

https://t.co/KBljTG8kWz

[James Wilson Institute @JamesWilsonInst]

JWI is proud to introduce the 2026 James Wilson Summer Fellows! This distinguished group of lawyers, clerks, and law students will gather in Old Town Alexandria this August to spend seven days studying Natural Law and American jurisprudence under the guidance of Co-Directors Hadley Arkes and Gerry Bradley. We are grateful to be partnering for the 2026 Summer Fellowship once again with the First Liberty Institute's Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy.

Beginning in 2014, the James Wilson Fellowship has now convened sixteen classes. Once the Winter Fellows complete their program in August, they will join a group of almost 250 alumni.

You can read the brief biographies of the Fellows at the link below👇

[James Wilson Institute @JamesWilsonInst]

https://t.co/pWGtTOTZnn

[James Wilson Institute @JamesWilsonInst]

Join the Anchoring Truths Podcast for our most recent episode featuring attorney and EPPC Fellow Michael Fragoso for a discussion on a fascinating recent decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on contract law, international law, potential impacts on U.S. business. We also delve into philosophical questions on contractual obligations and the Natural Law. Listen now at the link below!

[James Wilson Institute @JamesWilsonInst]

Judge Lane is the third James Wilson Fellowship alum to become a federal judge, following Judge Zachary Bluestone (E.D. Mo.) and Judge Jordan Pratt (M. D. Fla.).

[James Wilson Institute @JamesWilsonInst]

CONGRATULATIONS TO 2021 JAMES WILSON FELLOW KATIE LANE ON HER CONFIRMATION TO THE FEDERAL BENCH!

Warmest wishes to her as she begins her judicial service.

[Senate Cloakroom @SenateCloakroom]

Confirmed, 52-46: Confirmation of Executive Calendar #736, Kathleen S. Lane, of Montana, to be United States District Judge for the District of Montana.

[Civitas Institute @CivitasInst]

“In the early twenty-first century, we inhabit a world profoundly different from that of the founders — or even from Lincoln’s or King’s America.”

Read Justin Dyer’s contribution to The Civitas Collection 250 here: https://t.co/Kugamf9wtD

[Professor Gerry Bradley @Prof_GBradley]

https://t.co/GPivHTUrMI
When I arrived at Cornell Law School in August of 1977 Bob Blakey had been there just a few years. Already he was a folk hero; at least to those of us interested in criminal justice-and there were many who regarded him as an icon.🧵on his legacy 1/

[James Wilson Institute @JamesWilsonInst]

NOW: JWI Board of Jurists member Judge John Bush (at right) joins the post-dinner @FedSoc panel on a jural perspective following its legislative branch conference

[James Wilson Institute @JamesWilsonInst]

NEW: @MTMehan of @HillsdaleInDC joins @AnchoringTruths podcast to explore how to pass down the goodness of America through fables during America 250. Mehan is the author of "The American Book of Fables" discusses his new heirloom volume, both a collection of original and reworked fables set across the U.S.

https://t.co/xZltXL3eKm

[Hadley Arkes @HPArkes_]

The evasions have run their course. The case will come back to the Court and the justices will be challenged to face that simple, but decisive question that they had steered widely to evade: whether abortion does indeed mean the killing of a small human being. Or will they continue to pretend that this question—of what the cases are truly about—is somehow beyond their “job description? 9/end

[Hadley Arkes @HPArkes_]

Yet perhaps this very denial is preparing the ground for what only Justice Alito would have the nerve to do: to draw out explicitly the conclusions that already flow from his own reasoning in Dobbs. That the nascent life has been, from its first moments, nothing other than a human life—entitled to the full protection of the law. 8/

[Hadley Arkes @HPArkes_]

One may suppose that Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Roberts hesitate to take the case too swiftly, preferring to let it “unfold” further in the Fifth Circuit. But Alito and Thomas would justly ask: Why the delay? Is it not already plain what is happening—and what a grave challenge this poses to those who signed Dobbs? 7/

[Hadley Arkes @HPArkes_]

Do we require any further testimony to confirm the manifest failure of Dobbs? Unless Justice Alito has deliberately teed up the question for the Court: If his colleagues joined him in that opinion, are they now prepared to watch it reduced to a nullity? 6/

[Hadley Arkes @HPArkes_]

Alito cites the refusal of Governor Hochul in New York even to extradite those shipping this poison into Louisiana. The result, as Alito notes, is stark: more abortions now occur each month in Louisiana than before Dobbs. By one count, nearly 1,000 each month. 5/

[Hadley Arkes @HPArkes_]

But it is Justice Alito who strikes at the decisive point at once. What we confront here is a deliberate scheme—to employ every lever of federal power to nullify the decision in Dobbs. It began with the Biden Administration itself, and it has been joined by officials who treat the laws of pro-life states with open contempt. 4/

[Hadley Arkes @HPArkes_]

When the distributors of this deadly drug cry “irreparable harm” to their trade, Thomas answers with a truth that should pierce every evasion: “They cannot, in any legally relevant sense, be irreparably harmed by a court order that makes it more difficult for them to commit crimes.” 3/

[Hadley Arkes @HPArkes_]

Among the conservative justices, Thomas comes closest yet to naming the wrong of abortion itself, quite apart from the usual complaints about “substantive due process.” He recalls the Comstock Act and the unbroken line of federal authority that once barred the shipment of abortifacients. 2/

[Hadley Arkes @HPArkes_]

The Supreme Court has now denied Louisiana’s application for a stay in the Danco Labs case. The shipment of mifepristone will not be blocked. Only Justices Alito and Thomas dissented—with force and clarity. 🧵on its importance. 1/