{"id":5759,"date":"2022-11-18T19:17:23","date_gmt":"2022-11-19T00:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/?p=5759"},"modified":"2022-11-18T19:17:23","modified_gmt":"2022-11-19T00:17:23","slug":"grove-on-the-misunderstood-history-of-textualism-taraleighgrove1-nwulrev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/2022\/11\/18\/grove-on-the-misunderstood-history-of-textualism-taraleighgrove1-nwulrev\/","title":{"rendered":"Grove on The Misunderstood History of Textualism @TaraLeighGrove1 @NwULRev"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tara Leigh Grove, University of Texas School of Law, is publishing <a href=\"https:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4270864&amp;dgcid=ejournal_htmlemail_law:society:public:law:constitutional:law:ejournal_abstractlink\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Misunderstood History of Textualism<\/a> in volume 117 of the Northwestern University Law Review (2023). Here is the abstract.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This Article challenges widespread assumptions about the history of textualism. Jurists and scholars have sought for decades to distinguish \u201cmodern textualism\u201d from the so-called \u201cplain meaning school\u201d of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries\u2014an approach that both textualists and non-textualists alike have long viewed as improperly \u201cliteral\u201d and \u201cwooden.\u201d This Article shows that this conventional historical account is incorrect. Based on a study of statutory cases from 1789 to 1945 that use the term \u201cplain meaning\u201d or similar terms, this Article reveals that, under the actual plain meaning approach, the Supreme Court did not ignore context but looked to surrounding text and structure to determine if an operative text was clear. The Article also offers an intellectual history, showing how in the early twentieth century, legal realists and legal process theorists created the myth of a \u201cliteral\u201d and \u201cwooden\u201d \u201cplain meaning school.\u201d More surprisingly, modern textualists later accepted this account\u2014a decision that, this Article suggests, had an important impact on the development of textualism. To distinguish their brand from (what they saw as) the \u201cliteral\u201d old plain meaning school, modern textualists defined \u201ctextualism\u201d so capaciously as to create the conditions for divisions within textualism that we see today. This Article not only clears up a historical misunderstanding but also has two broader lessons. First, the account here offers a cautionary tale about reliance on \u201cconventional wisdom.\u201d Second, the analysis suggests that theorists should set aside debates over \u201cliteralism\u201d in statutory interpretation. The question is not\u2014and has never been\u2014whether interpreters should look to context but rather which context they should consider.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Download the article from SSRN at the link.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=HedgehogsFoxes\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tara Leigh Grove, University of Texas School of Law, is publishing The Misunderstood History of Textualism in volume 117 of the Northwestern University Law Review (2023). Here is the abstract. This Article challenges widespread&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[272],"tags":[541,132],"class_list":["post-5759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-interpretation","tag-legal-interpretation","tag-news"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pasVL2-1uT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5760,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5759\/revisions\/5760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}