Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy spoke Saturday morning as part of a panel dissecting the origin and power of the United States Constitution. The discussion, titled “We the People,” was moderated by Kathleen Sullivan, dean of the School of Law and a constitutional law expert.

The panel included Law Profs. Pamela Karlan and Lawrence Lessig and History Prof. Jack Rakove. All three have contributed to constitutional scholarship in recent years.

Opening the presentation with a reading of the preamble to the Constitution, Sullivan asked the panel members to state their own interpretations of the framers’ words.

“The answer for [Americans] was their own sovereignty,” Kennedy said. “They needed to make a traumatic break from England.”

“They knew we could not be free until we had our own identity,” he added. “The framers had a very special challenge. They had to state this idea in a convincing way.”

The panelists all acknowledged the vague language of the preamble as the framers’ strategy to allow for looser interpretations of the Constitution. The ambiguity was largely intentional to allow states to create more specific laws.

“The idea that you could submit a document to ratification by the states was a brilliant idea,” Rakove said. “In 1788, it was an amazing example of the democratic process.”

Kennedy explained that before the Constitution was completed, the United States was always referred to in the plural form. The use of the singular “we the people” instead of “we the peoples” suggested a new national unity.

While panelists emphasized the centralized nature of the document, they also discussed its provisions for American individuality.

“The framers were children of the enlightenment,” Kennedy said. “It introduced the idea that you could create your own destiny, build your own life.”

At the time the Constitution was developed, federalism was both a novel and risky idea.

“Federalism was the unique creation of the framers,” Kennedy said. “It had an ethical and moral imperative that no one should give up power to a central government that would control their destiny.”

According to Karlan, it is important to acknowledge that the famed “We the people” did not include everyone residing in the colonies at the time of independence.

“If you go back to 1787 and ask who this ‘We the people’ were, we limited the vote to men, we limited the vote to whites, we limited the vote to landowners,” she said. “Some of these people have been included as a result of constitutional amendments.

“Each generation of people has had to give meaning to these phrases,” she added.

The panelists later turned their attention to what has kept the Constitution applicable for the past 200 years.

“The Supreme Court has done so much to keep the document alive,” Lessig said. “The justices on the right and the left have made a continuous effort to translate the spirit of the Constitution.”

Using the Internet as an example of rapid and dramatic change in the modern United States, Lessig said that many of the original constitutional amendments are still relevant today.

“When you think about the Internet and the first amendment and the freedom of the press, the framers really did have the Internet in mind,” Lessig said. “They saw the press as being decentralized, unregulated and radical.”

The conversation shifted from a dissection of the Constitution to an evaluation of the century’s significant Supreme Court decisions, primarily Brown vs. Board of Education.

“Brown vs. Board was a great decision, but it came after Truman integrated the military, it came after a war that fundamentally changed how we view race,” Karlan said.

In discussing Brown and the preceding Plessy vs. Ferguson case, which set the foundation for the “separate but equal” doctrine, Kennedy added, “We are blind to the inequities of our own times.”

Lessig pointed to the court as the branch of government that gives the Constitution meaning and context in American society.

“People have thought that we could move the Constitution into Russian or German and it would work the same way,” he said. “But really we need to create a sense of norms, understandings and culture to make it work.”

Sullivan asked the panelists to discuss the influence of the U.S. Constitution on political developments in other countries.

“Americans believe our Constitution is the golden standard for the world, but everyone has a different way to develop allegiance to law,” Kennedy said. “For us, law is empowering and gives people freedom, the ability to create. The farther east you got, the more authoritarian it becomes.”

Kennedy concluded the discussion, acknowledging the importance of political and civic engagement in keeping the Constitution alive in the new millennium.

“A democracy will fail if there isn’t a will to uphold its universal values,” he said. “It requires people to be interested and knowledgeable about the Constitution.”

Constitutional law will be the main focus of a new center within the law school, which Sullivan will head when she steps down from her current position at the end of the academic year. The center will seek to educate people about the spirit of the document and its influence on today’s society.

“It will aim to attract constitutional scholars to Stanford for lectures and conferences,” Sullivan said. “It will serve as a convening forum to bring together academics, judges and lawyers to discuss constitutional matters.”

According to Sullivan, these experts will participate in litigation and public advocacy on constitutional issues and produce media events such as televised panels, moot courts and debates.

Sullivan’s decision to leave her post as dean was the result of her desire to tackle significant constitutional issues.

“When I took the position in 1999, I committed to one term of five years which ends next year, always intending to return to the life of writing about, teaching and practicing constitutional law,” she said. “The constitutional issues now facing our society have become so vexing and in need of attention that it was the right move.”

Following a year-long sabbatical, Sullivan plans to return to full-time teaching at the law school in 2005.