Professor William Gangi of St. John’s University assigns Plato’s analogy of the cave as the first reading assignment in his constitutional law class. As Gangi told USC Law students during a lunchtime appearance on Sept. 19, his own version of that analogy includes Supreme Court justices standing 
at the rear of the cave, casting shadows upon the front wall.
“Seated in the first few rows, viewing the projected shadows, are a number of constitutional scholars,” he said. “Behind them are members of the intelligentsia – other lawyers, political scientists and educators. In successive rows are seated elected officials, then media representatives. Common citizens fill the remainders of the rows. All the seated are prisoners with chains about their necks, their heads fixed to view the shadows.”
Gangi, who teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Constitutional Law, Public Administration and the Federalist Papers, discussed the question “Are the courts destroying constitutional law?” during a lunchtime event hosted by the Federalist Society.
An interpretivist who believes that the judiciary should read and assign meaning to the Constitution the way the U.S. founders intended, Gangi contends that noninterpretivists suggest that every generation is entitled to redefine the Constitution to suit its needs.
“Even if noninterpretivist public policy preferences are morally superior, ethically correct, or otherwise superior to those presently operative in our society, I contend the judiciary still has no right to impose them,” Gangi said.
There are a number of ways in which to perfect the “craft” of interpretation, Gangi said. If the framers’ intent can be reasonably ascertained, judges remain bound to them and should reject implicit assumptions. Also, to the degree the framers’ intent is unclear or inconsistent, legislative power increases, not judicial power.
“Their objective was to avoid the tendency of all governments to inject passion into public policy,” Gangi said.
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