In 1997, Philadelphia Mayor Edward G. Rendell presided over a ribbon cutting at the Law School to open the Journal of Constitutional Law’s offices. When Biddle Law Library was moved from the second floor of Silverman Hall to the new Nicole E. Tanenbaum Hall in the early 1990s, renovations to the original space were urgently needed to update them for modern use.

John K. Castle, a former member of the Law School’s Board of Overseers and father to William S. Castle L’99, funded the project to provide the physical think tank for the newest student-run journal. His generosity is formally credited as the “Gift of William Sherman Castle L’99 in Memory of His Forefather, Roger Sherman, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution of the United States, and Signer of the Bill of Rights.”

The following year, the Journal of Constitutional Law of the University of Pennsylvania launched its first volume, its mission to provide a forum for the interdisciplinary study of constitutional law. The subjects examined in its inaugural issue included the regulation of hate crimes, religious freedom, and free speech. Since then, the Con Law Journal has published symposia editions on Contextuality & Universality: Constitutional Borrowings on the Global Stage (in two parts); Existing and Emerging Constitutional Rights of Children; Race, Crime and the Constitution; and the 2001 symposium on Equal Protection After the Rational Basis Era: Is it Time to Reassess the Current Standards of Review? The symposium planned for February 2002 will focus on Native American Law and the Constitution.