Professor Laurence Tribe Suspending Work on Con. Law Treatise

In a two page letter to Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer and a thirteen page open letter to readers, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe announces that he has decided to suspend work on the third edition of American Constitutional Law.  A succinct explanation of why is found in the second paragraph of his letter to Justice Breyer included below.  Both letters are available from The Green Bag.

Rather, I’ve suspended work on a revision because, in area after area, we find ourselves at a fork in the road – a point at which it’s fair to say things could go in any of several directions – and because conflict over basic constitutional premises is today at a fever pitch.  Ascertaining the text’s meaning; the proper role and likely impact of treaty, international and foreign law; the relationships among constitutional law, constitutional culture, and constitutional politics; what to make of things about which the Constitution is silent – all these, and more, are passionately contested, with little common ground from which to build agreement.

Lee Peoples, Oklahoma City University Law Library