“The Miller Lecture is well known for bringing so many distinguished scholars and jurists to Georgia State, and it is truly an honor and a privilege to be among them,” said Melissa Murray, the Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law and faculty director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Network at New York University School of Law.
Murray delivered the 67th Henry J. Miller Distinguished Lecture at noon on Thursday, April 4, 2024, at Georgia State University College of Law.
Her talk entitled “Dobbs & Democracy,” offered scholarly commentary on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2002), a landmark decision by the court overturning the long-held precedent protecting a person’s right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade in 1973.
"As an expert on reproductive justice, she brought important insight about how the United States is in a pivotal moment of constitutional history in which the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs has far-reaching implications for American democracy and the meaning of democratic deliberations." said Anthony Michael Kreis, assistant professor of law.
Her research on such topics as marriage and its alternatives, the marriage equality debate, the legal recognition of caregiving, and reproductive rights and justice made her a fitting candidate to give this year’s lecture.
Melissa Murray, the Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law and faculty director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Network at New York University School of Law, delivered the 67th Henry J. Miller Distinguished Lecture.
Murray approached the Dobbs decision systematically, responding to it on its self-described intellectual origins and vision of democratic deliberation in the past, and considering what it might mean for the future of reproductive rights.
Murray explained that although the Dobbs majority is heavily focused on the idea that Roe v. Wade may have interrupted ongoing conversation among the American people at the state level about the constitutionality of protecting abortion rights, there may be other motivations revealed by their words.
“One way that we might understand the Dobbs majority's preoccupation with democratic deliberation is that democratic deliberation, or the absence of it, or the disruption of it, now serves as a special consideration that would justify departing from the edicts of stare decisis,” she said.
Murray pointed out that the Supreme Court has not always included the state of public debate as part of its considerations of previous cases, and she explained that the decision shows the Justice’s interest in returning these issues to the American people to decide.
“At some level, the majority's interest in restoring the abortion question to the democratic process reflects the view that democracy, rather than jurisprudence, is the best way to resolve this vexed question.”
That interest, Murray cautioned, raises a necessary question.
“What is the Dobbs majority's conception of democracy?” she asked.
Murray reminded the audience that many of the laws cited by the Dobb’s majority were enacted in an era when not all citizens could vote or run for political office, calling into question the kind of democracy that the court’s majority envisioned in their writing.
Calling the decision a “hollow commitment to democracy,” Murray said: “Put differently, the Dobbs majority's method of analysis and interpretation binds the contemporary meaning of the Constitution to a body of law and authority in whose enactment and creation neither women nor people of color played any part.”
Murray left her audience with much to consider, laying out indications that the Dobbs decision is not merely a decision for the present, but one that illuminates a roadmap for the future of the court.
“Dobbs’ democratic state-by-state settlement is likely just a waystation,” she said in closing, “and not the final destination. Instead, the true potential of the Dobbs majority's vision of democracy enhancing jurisprudence likely will be achieved only when the rights of an overlooked, discrete and insular minority, the fetus, are finally recognized, whether through majoritarian politics or by judicial fiat.”
College of Law faculty and administration select the speaker for the Miller Lecture each year to highlight the scholarship of a legal thought leader in significant areas of interest to the profession. As the 2024 speaker, Murray joins a cohort of esteemed legal scholars, thought leaders, jurists and journalists, including Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O’Connor and John Paul Stevens.
"Professor Melissa Murray’s lecture was perfectly timed," said Allison Whelan, assistant professor of law. "Her lecture, and her work more generally, raise questions we must all ask ourselves: 'What does democracy mean, and who decides what it means?' ‘Is the American judiciary committed to a definition of democracy that promotes the rights of all citizens equally?’ Professor Murray fearlessly tells us like it is, illustrating the importance of questioning judicial rhetoric about democracy, such as that seen in the Dobbs decision. She is a voice everyone should hear—legal scholars, policymakers, students, the general public and more. Georgia State Law was so lucky to have Professor Murray join us for the Miller Lecture.”
The Henry J. Miller Distinguished Lecture Series is supported by the Charles Loridans Foundation Inc. and named for the late Henry J. Miller, a partner in the law firm of Alston & Bird for more than 50 years. Miller garnered an extensive list of achievements through his legal career, including being designated as the amicus curiae of the Supreme Court of Georgia for his distinguished service and contribution to the improvement of the administration of Justice.