Recent pivotal United States Supreme Court decisions have relied substantially on historical evidence and analysis. These include, for example, District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), which for the first time established an individual right to keep and bear arms and Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, No. 19-1392, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), which ruled that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. We also expect the forthcoming decision in Trump v. Anderson, the case reviewing Colorado’s decision to disqualify candidate Donald Trump under Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment, to rely heavily on history.

We believe that historians have a unique role to play in ensuring that Court decisions are faithful to the best of historical scholarship, which too often has not been the case. The proposed panel will examine the use of historical evidence in these critical decisions. It will focus on our role as historical amici in Trump v. Anderson. Twenty-five of the nation’s leading historians signed on to our brief. Based on contemporary evidence and sound historical analysis, we believe that it demonstrated 1) that Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment covers the President of the United States, 2) that Section 3 did not just punish ex-Confederates but applies to future insurrectionists, and 3) that enforcement of Section 3 like other disqualifications based on age, residence, and birth requires no additional acts of Congress. The chair and the panelists are all holders of endowed chairs or an appointment as distinguished professor.