UToledo Institute of Constitutional Thought and Leadership

A new center at The University of Toledo will offer students the opportunity for deeper exploration of our common constitutional heritage and how the 236-year-old Constitution continues to shape our country’s political, cultural and legal norms and arguments.

The UToledo Institute of Constitutional Thought and Leadership was created and funded by the Ohio Legislature earlier this year to help develop future leaders within the legal profession and to provide a space for diverse voices to discuss and debate key questions about American society, history and politics, both past and present.

“The academic heart of a university is a place where there is an open, respectful dialogue of different viewpoints,” said Lee Strang, the John W. Stoepler Professor of Law and Values in the UToledo College of Law and the new center’s director. “Providing opportunities to both model and engage in the kind of civic dialogue and debate that citizens in our shared republic should have is extremely important, and that’s going to be one of the primary goals of this center.”

The center’s other main goal, Strang said, is to expand on UToledo’s already robust teaching of the Constitution and the broader American constitutional tradition for UToledo students.

“The Constitution is one of our country’s founding documents. It establishes not only our system of government, but it also serves as the guiding framework for all our nation’s laws. It’s essential for future leaders to have a fundamental understanding of constitutional law,” he said. “This center will also allow us to go beyond that and devote study to state constitutions, especially the Ohio Constitution, and then even further into deep questions of justice, liberty and the common good.”

Strang, a nationally recognized constitutional law scholar who clerked for Judge Alice M. Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, was instrumental in developing the concept and working with the Ohio Legislature to establish the Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership after researching similar models at other universities.

He was particularly inspired by the James Madison Program at Princeton University, where he served as a visiting fellow during the 2018-19 academic year. Strang also served as a visiting scholar at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution during the fall 2015 semester.

His idea was ultimately taken up by state lawmakers, who eventually funded the Institute for American Constitutional Thought and Leadership as well as similar centers at four additional public universities in Ohio.

The state’s current two-year budget calls for UToledo to receive $1 million in each year to fund the center.

Focused on the American constitutional tradition, the institute is an independent center within the University that will offer opportunities for students across the University.

The Institute for American Constitutional Thought and Leadership will benefit the College of Law by bringing new opportunities to law students including classes, speakers and research and writing training.

“We also have always had a strength in the area of constitutional law. We have several professors who have national reputations in constitutional law, and having this institute at the University builds on those strengths,” said Rebecca Zietlow, interim dean of the College of Law and a Distinguished University Professor of law with expertise in constitutional law and litigation. “This institute will bring valuable resources to the University and help to enrich the intellectual climate of the College of Law and the University.”

The center will be built out over the next five years, with Strang’s initial focus as the director on getting staff and faculty in place and offering the center’s first course, one devoted to studying the Ohio constitution.

He’s also working to schedule programming. The kick-off event will be a conversation about the Ohio constitution with Ohio Supreme Court Justices Melody Stewart and Patrick DeWine.

“Students will learn about the constitution but also see two people who frequently disagree engage in a constructive way about the Constitution, how we interpret it and its role in Ohioans’ lives,” Strang said. “These two leading justices come from different jurisprudential backgrounds. My goal is the event sets the tone for our center as a place of open and respectful debate.”

Strang and Zietlow both say it’s essential for law students and practicing lawyers to be able to understand — and be able to argue — multiple sides of an issue.

“As a lawyer, you’re going to have a variety of clients. Some of those clients’ views you’re going to agree with, some you’re not. Some of the arguments you have to make on behalf of your clients you may agree with and some of those you don’t,” Strang said. “Providing a forum for debate and discussion in the classroom, in programming, in research and writing, where students learn how to engage with ideas and views and arguments different than their own is really helping them be the best lawyers they can be.”

In the future, Strang envisions the center hosting annual faculty and student research and writing symposiums, offering courses with faculty from disciplines across the University that touch on the broader aspects of the American constitutional tradition, and hosting a range of events with leading academic, political, religious and civic figures.