Support our commentary on scholarship related to our mission. Commentaries promote our scholars and works related to our mission so that they are more visible and more accessible to the public.
See the latest commentary pieces here.
Support a podcast interview with a scholar in the natural law, which will be made available online. JWI staff interviews a scholar with a recent book or work to better understand the ideas presented and to see how these ideas display the effects of natural law.
See one of our recent podcast summaries here.
Sponsor one of our interns for their time working at the Institute. The internship program offers an opportunity for students to participate in JWI as a hands on means to learn the day-to-day work of creating change in our legal jurisprudence. These funds will allow the Institute to offer further stipends for full-time internships.
See more about our internship program here.
Support a new set of essays from James Wilson Affiliated Scholars that will be published to educate the public on the latest in both the history of the American Founding and how Natural Law illuminates modern legal debates.
Sponsor one of our public lectures or events for educating citizens in natural law. These events bring together experts in the legal field to discuss and debate contemporary issues of law and public policy. We have hosted speakers such as former Judge Janice Rogers Brown, Kim Strassel, Rick Santorum, and US Senator James Lankford.
See our most recent public events here.
Support the needs of young lawyers who participate in the James Wilson Fellowship in the summer. This week-long intensive seminar brings a select group of young lawyers together to learn from Prof. Arkes and a set of gifted teachers among our Affiliated JWI Scholars. We show how the pressing issues of our day would be addressed through the reasoning of Natural Law, much the way that Jefferson or Madison reasoned. For many of these young lawyers, this course introduces an entirely new view of the law, one they never encountered in four years of college or three years of law school.
Joel Nolette, 2018 Fellow: "Through the Fellowship, I have come to see that... instead of trying to strip the law of any hint of 'morals,' we should better understand the roots of morality - the natural law - and its proper place in the cration, application, and interpretation of positive law."
Kathleen Hunker, 2016 Fellow: "This fellowship has been a great success in that it has been able to put words to feelings. It has been able to give the tools that are needed in order to articulate them in well delivered manners that not only tie the Constitution into the American Founding, but also can stand the test of the ages."
See our most recent Fellowship from 2019 here.
Donate to the needs of the scholars that make our James Wilson Fellowship possible. These teachers give from their limited time to educate a new generation of lawyers. Their talents and willingness to assist form the backbone of our mission at JWI.
Leanr more about our JWI Affiliated Scholars here.
Provide for the needs of our Senior Seminars, which gather judges and experts together to educate one another in the natural law, over the course of a weekend. These seminars take up substantive current issues to discuss how they can be seen and understood better through the lens of a natural law jurisprudence.
Prof. Robert Miller of University of Iowa Law School: "These seminars are the most important conferences that I attend."
Prof. Daniel Mark of Villanova Law School: “Having a community that comes together on a regular basis is really valuable for the project because it means that we can make intellectual progress. It’s not as though we start from scratch each time.”
Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of natural rights of its members, and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind.