Recent Symposium on Justice Blackmun in Brooklyn Law Review

The Brooklyn Law Review recently sponsored a symposium on Justice Harry Blackmun, which was published in issue one of this year’s volume. Although I have not read all the papers yet, the table of contents, see here, shows that the journal collected an interesting group of papers and scholars for the symposium.

Of particular note would be Dean Harold Koh’s paper entitled, “Unveiling Justice Blackmun,” which describes how the oral history and papers of Justice Blackmun ended up at the Library of Congress. As many of you know, the Blackmun papers are probably the richest source of primary data on the modern Court, primarily due to Blackmun’s meticulous recordkeeping of all documents relating to his service on the Court. I would also recommend the Introduction to the Symposium written by one of my colleagues, Heidi Kitrosser, which provides an outline of many of the other fine papers in that issue. According to Professor Kitrosser’s introduction, the impetus for the Symposium was the publication of Linda Greenhouse’s biography, “Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun’s Supreme Court Journey.”