William E Forbath
- Lloyd M. Bentsen Chair in Law
Faculty Profile: William E Forbath
Main Profile Content
Featured Work
Harvard University Press
"As Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath detail in their wonderfully counterintuitive book, “The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution,” . . . . [the Constitution] is annotated with statements of astonishing democratic vision, penned by the great social movements of the past. From the earliest days of the Republic, those movements insisted that the greatest threat to democracy is not the tyranny of one man but the oligarchic rule of wealth. . . . . Historically, Fishkin and Forbath remind us, Americans have thought of the Constitution as a weapon in the struggle for economic equality, as a real presence in their material lives."
—Corey Robin, “How Do We Survive the Constitution?”, The New Yorker
“An important and stirring achievement. In this gold mine of historical discovery and legal insight, Fishkin and Forbath recover and renew the lost Constitution of strong democratic opportunity for all.”
—Congressman Jamie Raskin
"Despite its scholarly depth, the “Anti-Oligarchy Constitution”is eminently readable, and anybody who cares about the future of American democracy in these perilous times can only hope that it will be widely read and carefully considered."
—James Pope, “How to use the Constitution to rein in American oligarchs and save democracy,” Washington Post
“'We the People' can only be sovereign so long as economic as well as political power is broadly distributed. An oligarchic system in which economic—and therefore political—power is concentrated at the top is unconstitutional, Fishkin and Forbath contend, and they make their case with a wealth of historical evidence . . . . [For Fishkin and Forbath,] the meaning of the Constitution is too important to be left to the lawyers."
—Jay Swanson, “The Left Needs to Take Back the Constitution,” The Nation
“Want to fight oligarchy in America? In this fascinating and brilliant reconstruction of American constitutional thought, Fishkin and Forbath show how economic freedom and constitutional freedom used to be intertwined in public thought, and how they got separated—with devastating results. Part mystery story (how did we get here?), and part call to arms, their book is a must-read for all people ready for a new democracy of meaningful opportunity.”
—Zephyr Teachout, Fordham Law School
Biography
Willy Forbath holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen Chair and is Associate Dean of Research at UT Austin School of Law; he is also a Professor of History at UT. He is the author of Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement, the forthcoming The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy (February, 2022)(with Joseph Fishkin), and dozens of articles, book chapters, and essays on legal and constitutional history and theory and comparative constitutional law. He is completing a history of Jews, law and identity politics in the twentieth century and starting a history of socialist lawyering and legal imagination. He occasionally writes on legal and constitutional issues for the New York Times, the Nation and other outlets, and is on the boards of several Texas organizations devoted to social movements and advocacy for affordable housing and workers’ rights. In addition to UT Austin, he has taught at UCLA, Sciences Po, Tel Aviv, Columbia, and Harvard.
Most Recent Media
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Courses for Spring 2024
Professional Activities
2019
April 1, 2019
Paper Presentation
“The Jewish Constitutional Moment,” Princeton University, Public Seminar, Program in Law & Public Affairs, Princeton, N.J.
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2017
May 19-21, 2017
Workshop Leader
Principal Director & Convener - Open Society Foundation Project on Expanding the Scope for Social and Economic Rights Litigation in Ghana and South Africa: “Toward a New Constitutional Political Economy – Transition and Transformation,” Cape Town, South Africa, May 19-21, 2017
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March 5, 2017
Talk
“The Jewish Constitutional Moment,” Conference on "Jewish Law in the Modern State," Yale Law School, New Haven, CT, March 5, 2017
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February 10, 2017
Talk
“Law, Lawyering and the Labor Movement: Past, Present, Future,” Conference on “Lawyers and Social Movements,” UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, February 10, 2017
January 10-14, 2017
Conference Leader
Principal Director & Convener - Open Society Foundation Project on Expanding the Scope for Social and Economic Rights Litigation in Ghana and South Africa: “Equitable, Democratic and Sustainable Pathways of Oil Governance and Economic Development?” Accra, Ghana, January 10-14, 2017
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2016
December 16, 2016
Featured Speaker
Featured speaker: The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy Presents: Is America Becoming a Plutocracy? Press Conference Call/American Constitution Society, December 16, 2016
September 22, 2016
Lecture
"The Jewish Constitutional Moment: Diaspora and Group Rights in the Making of American Jewishness and Modern Liberalism," Gabry Memorial Lecture, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, September 22, 2016
July 28, 2016
Podcast
“The Constitutional History of the Democratic Party,” podcast for National Constitution Center (with Jeff Rosen, Sean Wilentz) http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2016/07/podcast-a-constitutional-history-of-the-democratic-party/
April 19, 2016
Lecture
“The Future of Economic and Social Rights,” Lecture at Boston College Law School, Chestnut Hill, MA, April 19, 2016
March 25, 2016
Featured Speaker
Fishkin & Forbath, The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution in draft - centerpiece of conference on “Constitution and Economic Inequality” at The Center for Constitutional Governance 2016 Annual Conference, Columbia Law School, New York, NY, March 25, 2016
January 28-30, 2016
Core Speaker and Text
Texas Law Review Symposium on "The Constitution and Economic Inequality” – core text Fishkin & Forbath, The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution in draft, with commentaries by Jack Balkin, Jeremy Kessler, Cynthia Estlund, Frank Michelman, Jed Purdy, & Reva Siegel, Austin, TX, January 28–30, 2016
2015
March 30, 2015
Paper Presentation
“Wealth, Commonwealth and the Constitution of Opportunity: A Story of Two Traditions,” Harvard University Workshop on the History of Capitalism, Cambridge, MA, March 30, 2015 (with Joseph Fishkin)
March 18-19, 2015
Lecture
“The Jewish Constitutional Moment in the Early Twentieth Century,” Lecture at Conference on “Jewish Rights, Minority Rights, Human Rights?” Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, March 18-19, 2015
2014
May 18-19, 2014
Seminar Leader
“Constitution, Courts, and the South African National Political Economy,” (with Dennis Davis) at “Heterodox Innovations in Development Economics and Social and Economic Rights,” sponsored by the Radcliffe Institute and the Ecole du Droit, SciencesPo, Paris, France, May 18-19, 2014