Janine Turner, Cathy Gillespie, and Constituting America’s Student Ambassadors, Tova Love Kaplan and Dakare Chatman, chat with Constitutional experts on hot-topic issues via Zoom!
The 14th Amendment
Special Guest: Professor Randy Barnett, Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution
Professor Randy Barnett
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitution Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he directs the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. After graduating from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, he tried many felony cases as a prosecutor in the Cook County States’ Attorney’s Office in Chicago. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Constitutional Studies and the Bradley Prize, Professor Barnett has been a visiting professor at Penn, Northwestern and Harvard Law School.
Professor Barnett’s publications includes eleven books, more than one hundred articles and reviews, as well as numerous op-eds. His most recent book is An Introduction to Constitutional Law: 100 Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know (2019) (with Josh Blackman). His other books on the Constitution are Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (2nd ed. 2013), The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law (2nd ed. 2014), Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People (2016), and Constitutional Law: Cases in Context (3rd ed. 2018) (with Josh Blackman). His books on Contracts are The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Contracts (2010), Contracts: Cases and Doctrine (6th ed. 2016) (with Nate Oman).
In 2004, he argued the medical marijuana case of Gonzalez v. Raich before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2012, he was one of the lawyers representing the National Federation of Independent Business in its constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act in NFIB v. Sebelius. He’s appeared in numerous documentaries, including PBS’s Constitution USA with Peter Sagal and A More or Less Perfect Union with Judge Douglas Ginsburg; and he portrayed a prosecutor in the 2010 science-fiction feature film, InAlienable: The Movie. He blogs on the Volokh Conspiracy.
CONSTITUTIONAL CHATS LIVE PODCAST HOSTS
Janine Turner
Actress Janine Turner is famous for her role as Maggie O’Connell in televisions’ Northern Exposure. She is the Founder and Co-President of Constituting America which launched in 2010. She is still acting but she is also actively teaching kids about the U.S. Constitution given over 540 speeches to classrooms across the country.
Cathy Gillespie
Cathy Gillespie is the co-president of Constituting America and one of 16 private citizens serving on the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, helping organize the celebration of our country’s 250th birthday in 2026! She is a former Congressional Chief of Staff and former Commissioner of the White House Fellows Commission.
Tova Love Kaplan
Tova Love Kaplan is seventeen years old and lives in Chicago, Illinois. She currently serves as the National Youth Director for Constituting America, and runs the National Youth Advisory Council. She is a three-time winner of the “We the Future” contest in the Entrepreneurial (where she created a marketing plan), PSA (entitled “Know Your Rights. Read The Constitution”) and STEM (where she created an app). She is passionate about educating and empowering young people to use their constitutional rights!
Dakare Chatman
Constituting America Student Ambassador Dakare Chatman is 18 years old, and is currently a junior, full-time college student in South Carolina. He has won Constituting America’s We The Future Contest twice, once for best PSA where he reminded viewers the Constitution is “An American Thing, So Know It” and twice for his short film “Man On The Street.” He is also actively involved in our National Youth Advisory Board. He’s a working actor seen most recently in HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones and on April 15 in Netflix’s: Outer Banks. Dakare wishes to be an actor, but also a politician. But says you must be an actor to be a politician.