The Johns Hopkins News-Letter

The Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS) and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Agora Institute’s University debate initiative co-hosted the debate on the Supreme Court featuring Neal Katyal and Jeffrey Rosen on April 6. This was the fifth event in the 2023 Foreign Affairs Symposium series “Paradigm Shift.”

The primary focus of the event was to use Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court decision from last year that decided there is no constitutional right to an abortion and overturned Roe v. Wade, to provide a better understanding of the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s ruling process. Both speakers were assigned positions to take on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization; the affirmative position would argue that the Dobbs case was correctly decided, while the negating position would argue that the case was wrongly decided.

In an email to The News-Letter, Louise Flavahan, dialogue and debate director of the SNF Agora Institute, conveyed that the event was planned in response to student interest.

“We’ve heard repeatedly that students know that the Supreme Court has become a flashpoint in American politics and is influencing many important policy and legal issues that directly impact their lives, but they don’t quite know or understand the details or how to effectively engage in the conversations going on about the Court or, perhaps most importantly, what they can do about it,” she wrote.