NCLA’s Ginsburg-Scalia Fellowship for D.C. Summer Associates Honors Justices’ Legacy of Civility
Washington, DC (June 15, 2022) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, is pleased to announce the launch of the Ginsburg-Scalia Fellowship, an annual summer program for law students working in Washington D.C. NCLA is launching the Fellowship to honor the legendary friendship of former Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia and to promote their legacy of civility. Eighteen students who are committed to civil intellectual discourse—nine Ginsburg Fellows and nine Scalia Fellows—will attend eight weekly dinner lectures led by renowned legal scholars and judges, including Randy Barnett (Georgetown), Hon. Janice Rogers Brown (C.A.D.C., retired), Don Elliott (Yale), Philip Hamburger (Columbia), Gary Lawson (Boston), Jennifer Mascott (Scalia), Hon. Neomi Rao (C.A.D.C.), and John Yoo (UC-Berkeley).
Fellowships are offered on a competitive basis to nominees who show a commitment to the collegial tradition of Justices Ginsburg and Scalia. Selected individuals will spend the summer lecture series exploring the denial of core constitutional rights by the Administrative State: freedom of expression, freedom of association, religious liberty, due process, jury trial, and freedom from unreasonable search. The Ginsburg-Scalia Fellowship program will provide highly motivated emerging leaders in the legal community with firsthand experience discussing deep ideological issues with comity and collegiality. As a nonpartisan group, NCLA selected Fellows from both sides of the aisle, nominated for participation by the law firms where they are working as summer associates.
The Summer 2022 Class of Ginsburg-Scalia Fellows-Elect are Daniel Blatt, Eric Bush, Robert Capodilupo, Tanvi Datani, Connie Gong, Charles Jetty, Abigail Keller, Logan Kirkpatrick, Kristen Miluski, Vanessa Moody, Thomas Moore, Peter Povilonis, Elle Rogers, Jack Shapiro, Mikayla Sherman, Jacob Smith, Jared Stehle, and Charles Tammons. Fellowship participants come from a variety of top-notch law schools, including the University of Chicago Law School, the Georgetown University Law Center, the George Washington University Law School, Harvard Law School, the University of Michigan Law School, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Stanford Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, and Yale Law School.
The Fellows are working as summer associates at an array of prestigious law firms: Boies Schiller Flexner LLP; Consovoy McCarthy PLLC; Cooper & Kirk PLLC; Covington & Burling LLP; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP; Jones Day; Kirkland & Ellis LLP; Latham & Watkins LLP; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP; Sidley Austin LLP; White & Case LLP; and Williams & Connolly LLP.
The Fellowship opened with an introductory dinner and visit to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to see an opera (Justices Ginsburg and Scalia were noted lovers of opera), and it will culminate in a civil, public debate between two notable attorneys and two Fellows who come at a key constitutional issue from opposite ideological perspectives. This final debate will celebrate the nonpartisan nature of basic civil liberties, as well as the legal profession’s role in safeguarding those freedoms from infringement by the Administrative State.
Each Fellow-Elect who completes the program will receive a $1,000 honorarium and be eligible to attend any future events open to alumni of the program.
NCLA released the following statements:
“How often do law students have the chance to hear a series of constitutional law lectures from an all-star cast of professors? How many students even hear NCLA’s perspective on constitutional and administrative law at their campuses? Whether a student is a Scalia Fellow looking to learn some additional arguments against the administrative state, or a Ginsburg Fellow looking to engage with a perspective that could benefit future clients, this Fellowship promises to enrich the understanding—and encourage the collegiality—of all participants.”
— Mark Chenoweth, President and General Counsel, NCLA
“There is a noxious misconception that people of good faith cannot passionately disagree about important issues unless they also direct enmity and vitriol at each other. NCLA doesn’t believe that. The justices after whom this program is named didn’t believe that either. Our hope is that by participating in this summer program, the Ginsburg and Scalia Fellows will learn to emulate the sterling example set by two legendary jurists who were also the best of friends—and that they will carry the spirit of the Fellowship back to their respective law schools.”
— Clegg Ivey, Director of Engagement, NCLA
ABOUT NCLA
NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLA’s public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans’ fundamental rights.