Scholars and students gathered in the Murray Room Friday for an all-day symposium honoring the late Ken Kersch.
“He was an extraordinary colleague, scholar, and mentor,” said Jonathan Laurence, current director of the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy.
Kersch, a former professor of political science and former director of the Clough Center, died in November 2024
The event, “Constructing the Constitutional Imagination,” invited legal and political science scholars to discuss American conservatism and the Constitution—Kersch’s fields of study—and his impact on the University.
“The Constitution embodies a hope for a certain kind of politics in a certain sort of polity, and its maintenance depends on the modicum of unwritten norms concerning civic spirit, good faith, participation in a pluralist polity, generosity, honor, and self-restraint,” said Laurence.
A revered teacher and author of five books, Kersch was the recipient of the American Political Science Association’s 2020 C. Herman Pritchett award for the best book on law and courts.
The conference, co-sponsored by the Boston College Law School and the political science department, coincided with the publication of a special issue of the Journal of American Constitutional History that engaged with Kersch’s rich work across political science, history, and law.
Laurence noted that hiring Kersch was an early success for the political science department, leading to a significant increase in the University’s research and teaching excellence.
“He arrived at BC as the inaugural director of the Clough Center, setting a standard of academic excellence and student engagement for all who follow him,” Laurence said. “Ken would have been very impressed by today’s program, although he might well have been shy about the attention.”
The first panel focused on Kersch’s 2019 book, Conservatives and the Constitution.
Linda McClain, the Robert Kent professor of law at Boston University, discussed how Kersch’s work highlighted the power of narratives in shaping political movements within the American right.
“Ken cautioned liberals that they were still punching in the dark because they really didn’t understand the importance of narrative and how important it is to see how narrative is a motivating force,” McClain said. “There’s a narrative war going on in American history right now about civics.”
Logan Sawyer, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, argued that Kersch’s research helped scholars understand that originalism—the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted based on its original meaning—was not the only way conservatives imagined the law.
“Ken enabled us to pose the question, will originalism be cast aside in favor of more overt, substantive conservative constitutional theorizing now, or will conservative constitutional thinking still wear the garb of originalism?” Sawyer said. “I think based on Ken’s work, I would not be surprised to see if that remains the style of rhetoric.”
Aziz Rana, the J. Donald Monan, S.J., professor at BC Law, reflected on Kersch’s ability to engage with all ideas, regardless of whether there is common ground.
“He had this capacity to engage with what you might call a sympathetic hermeneutics,” Rana said. “Whether or not he agreed with you, or whether or not he was studying somebody that he shared the same cultural or political sympathies, he had the ability to think from within the terms of how they might imagine their arguments.”
The symposium continued throughout the afternoon with panels on civil liberties and constitutional development, offering scholarly deliberation as well as heartfelt appreciation for the personal and professional legacy that Kersch left behind.
“We miss him sorely today, but he left us all better equipped to understand political developments around us,” Laurence said. “It’s all of us who carry on his traditions, whether his dedication to rigorous independent-minded scholarship, or his imperative to experience life with healthy skepticism and a keen sense of humor.”