Ken Kersch as a Scholar of “The Other”

by Sanford Levinson

Abstract

An increasing number of scholars are insisting that we pay attention to figures beyond those who have dominated our scholarly attention. Ken Kersch was at the forefront of this realization. Unlike many “progressive” scholars, he tended to focus on political conservatives, whose political defeats most of his academic readers undoubtedly cheered. He offered his work not as a partisan, but as someone who correctly believed that the academy had a skewed understanding of the complexities of American constitutional development owing, perhaps, to its own generally “progressive” inclinations.