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As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Duke University hosted a wide-ranging conversation about two values that have shaped the nation from its earliest days: justice and the rule of law.
Held in Penn Pavilion, the event was part of the Deliberative Series on American Values, a multi-university collaboration among Duke University, Davidson College, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Moderated by Duke Law School Dean Kerry Abrams, the roundtable featured Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis Jr., Jeanette Doran, I. Beverly Lake, Jr. Chair in Constitutional Studies and Senior Counsel, John Locke Foundation, Thavolia Glymph, Peabody Family Distinguished Professor of History, and John Hood, President of the John William Pope Foundation
Throughout the evening, panelists reflected on the nation’s founding principles, their contradictions, and their continued relevance in debates over courts, voting rights, technology, and public discourse.
Defining the rule of law
Abrams opened by asking the panel to define a phrase that is often invoked but not always clearly explained: the rule of law.
For Hood, the concept is best understood in contrast to arbitrary power. He traced it to the idea of “a government of laws and not of men,” and described it as a system where people are not subject to “some monarch self-appointed or inherited… or even a clique of people who have absolute power.”
Doran emphasized rights and limits on government. The rule of law, she said, should be understood “not as a document and not as a theory, but as a commitment to our inherent rights as human beings to liberty, to life and to freedom and to the opportunity for prosperity.”
Glymph approached the question historically, describing the rule of law as “a body of law that helps people to understand who they are, where they are, how they can behave, how they cannot behave.”
Chavis, drawing on a lifetime of activism, stressed both its necessity and its imperfections. “It’s better to have an imperfect rule of law than not have a rule of law at all,” he said. “The question is, how do we move toward perfecting?”
Justice requires more than rules
As the discussion turned from law to justice, panelists argued that a legal system can be orderly without being fair.
Hood said justice means that “people who are in like situations are treated in like ways,” while acknowledging that laws still require judgment and discretion in their application.
Doran highlighted transparency and public trust, saying it matters whether laws are created and enforced for “the broader public good.”
Glymph focused on access. Even if laws are transparent on paper, she noted, many people still face barriers to understanding or navigating the system. “Does part of the justice of law come from understanding it?” she asked.
Chavis returned to the gap between legal ideals and lived experience. Over decades of civil rights work, he said, “I’ve seen the rule of law favor those in power. But sometimes the rule of law can favor those not in power.”
The founding era and its contradictions
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The conversation repeatedly returned to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which panelists described as both foundational and deeply flawed.
Hood noted that the Declaration was not only philosophical but practical, built around a list of grievances about unequal treatment and denied access to justice. In that sense, he said, the Revolution was not a rejection of law but a demand for it to be applied fairly.
Glymph described the founding documents as imperfect frameworks that still created room for change. “We’ve been striving continuously to build a nation based on the consent of the governed,” she said.
At the same time, panelists did not avoid the contradictions of the founding generation. Chavis pointed directly to the gap between principle and practice, noting that many of the same people who wrote about equality also enslaved others.
Reflecting on that history, he invoked Frederick Douglass and the unfinished work of American democracy. “When he thinks about July the Fourth, he thinks about what our nation could have been and could be and should be, not what it really is,” Chavis said. He called the 250th anniversary “a healthy thing to do,” but added, “I would hope that we will not wait until another 250 years to look back to try to perfect the imperfection of what started.”
Present-day questions about courts, voting, and technology
Audience questions brought the conversation squarely into the present.
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Asked about the Supreme Court, Hood reminded the audience that frustration with the Court is not new. “Ever since the Supreme Court started issuing opinions, Americans have been infuriated,” he said, while also describing the judiciary as “the weakest of the three branches.”
Doran noted that many Supreme Court decisions receive little public attention because the most polarizing cases dominate headlines. “We’ve got an awful lot of decisions out there that are nine-zero, eight-one, seven-two,” she said.
Chavis pointed to Brown v. Board of Education as an example of the Court at its best. The unanimous ruling, he said, “gave the aspirations of people who felt they had been unjustly treated, unjustly segregated… a sense of courage.”
Panelists also addressed questions about artificial intelligence, voting rights, and social media. On AI, they agreed that it may be useful as a tool but cannot resolve human questions of fairness and judgment. On voting, Chavis called participation “one of the responsibilities, not just privilege, of a democracy,” while warning that new barriers continue to threaten equal access to the ballot.
Modeling disagreement with civility
Even when panelists disagreed, the tone of the discussion remained thoughtful and direct, a quality several speakers explicitly acknowledged.
Glymph pointed to the value of the exchange itself. “We are talking to each other through those differences,” she said. “It may be that we have more in common than we typically think we have, but if we don’t sit down and talk to each other, this is a really rare moment.”
Hood added that meaningful dialogue requires openness as well as civility. “The idea of a conversation is to change minds, open hearts, and move us forward,” he said.
That spirit matched the purpose of the Deliberative Series on American Values, which invites participants to grapple with the nation’s founding ideals through dialogue across different perspectives. The fifth and final panel in the series will take place March 31 in the Holsti-Anderson Room at Perkins Library.