In Dissent

About In Dissent

In Dissent traces the founding ideals of the Declaration of Independence from the revolutionary moment of their birth to the courtrooms where they’ve been tested, twisted, and sometimes abandoned. Each episode pairs vivid historical storytelling—a man riding through the night to break a deadlocked vote, a printer setting type for a document that could get him hanged—with landmark Supreme Court cases that reveal the distance between America’s founding promise and its legal reality.

Publisher

Pacific Legal Foundation

Category

government

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

20 May 2026

Latest episode

29 Jul 2026

Latest episodes

3 of 7 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   29 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT

   All Men Are Created Equal

   Host Noah Feldman and guest Phillip Magness explore the historical injustice of Buck v. Bell, revealing how government actions contradict the ideal of equality.

2. 

   9 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT

   The Heart and Lungs of Liberty

   Steve Simpson and Tommy Berry explore the Founders' emphasis on jury trials and government's attempts to limit this right, highlighting the Jarkesy v. SEC case.

3. 

   30 Jun 2026TRANSCRIPT

   The Constitution Up in Smoke

   Georgetown Law Professor Randy Barnett and Stand Together Vice President Casey Mattox explain how the Supreme Court expanded federal power through interpretations of the Commerce Clause.

4. 

   16 Jun 2026

   We Can Sue the Government, Right?

   Georgetown Law Professor Randy Barnett, NYT columnist Jesse Wegman, and Cato Institute Senior Vice President Clark Neily discuss how the Eleventh Amendment complicates suing the government in this interview episode.

5. 

   2 Jun 2026

   The Pursuit of Happiness

   Jeffrey Rosen, Timothy Sandefur, and Alan Gura explore the Constitution's "pursuit of happiness" and its erosion through landmark Supreme Court decisions in this interview.

6. 

   26 May 2026

   Welcome to In Dissent

   Host [Host Name] explores how the Declaration of Independence's founding ideals are tested and transformed in landmark Supreme Court cases.

7. 

   20 May 2026

   The First Great American Dissent

   Historian Joseph Ellis, biographer Richard Brookhiser, and Professor Dermot Trainor discuss the perilous origins of the Declaration of Independence in this interview.

Inside a recent episode

All Men Are Created Equal

Published 29 Jul 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] More than 60,000 Americans in all were sterilized under laws like Virginia's. And in 1971, an Indiana judge approved a mother's petition to sterilize her 15-year-old daughter, Linda. There was no hearing, no one was appointed to speak for Linda, and she herself was never told. […]

Who has been a guest on In Dissent

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Noah Feldman
• Phillip Magness
• Steve Simpson
• Tommy Berry
• Casey Mattox

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.9 / 5

40 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

22 ratings

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