BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//132.216.98.100//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.20.4// BEGIN:VEVENT UID:20260409T211439EDT-63479TFW7v@132.216.98.100 DTSTAMP:20260410T011439Z DESCRIPTION:The Yan P. Lin Centre proudly presents its 2026 Annual Lecture\ , “Counter-Constitutions: On Being the Object of a Coup” given by Kim Sche ppele (Princeton) at the McGill Faculty Club Ballroom on March 19th at 4:3 0 PM. A reception will follow. \n\nAbstract: Many of us believed Donald Tr ump when he said that he would be a dictator on day one. But many American voters did not – and they elected him to an office that the US Supreme Co urt had just said would make its occupant immune from criminal prosecution . In one year\, Donald Trump has transformed the US Constitution into its opposite. He and his “MAGA” team have neutralized the congress\, ignored t he courts and created the largest police force in the world. This police f orce rolls into cities and displaces their local authorities\, snatching p eople off the streets and out of their homes\, ignoring constitutional req uirements. This police force kills\, maims and tortures without conscience because the prosecution service prosecutes only critics of this president and not those who commit crimes in his name. Constitutional rights in Ame rica  -- from basic liberty to free speech to equality before the law – ha ve been turned upside down. Violence does not stop at the border. Trump ha s bombed multiple countries\, killed people in small boats who are not par t of any armed conflict\, authorized a military operation to kidnap a head of state and appropriate its natural resources – and now threatens to ann ex by force territory belonging to an ally.   In this last year\, America has experienced a coup\, brought about by an election\, aided and abetted by a packed Supreme Court and now held in place by open violence. In this lecture\, I will discuss the “counter-constitution” under which Americans now live – and what hope there may be for democratic recovery.\n\nKim Lane Scheppele is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and Inter national Affairs and Director of the Program in Law and Normative Thinking at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Schepp ele's work focuses on the rise and fall of constitutional democracy. After 1989\, Scheppele studied the new constitutional courts of Hungary and Rus sia\, living in both places for extended periods. After 9/11\, she researc hed the effects of the international 'war on terror' on constitutional pro tections around the world. Since 2010\, she has been documenting attacks o n constitutional democracy by legalistic autocrats. Her book Destroying (a nd Restoring) Democracy by Law is forthcoming from Harvard University Pres s.\n\nScheppele is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and S ciences and the International Academy of Comparative Law. In 2014\, she re ceived the Law and Society Association’s Kalven Prize for influential scho larship in comparative constitutional law and in 2024\, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work on democratic backsliding. She was Pres ident of the Law and Society Association from 2017-2019.\n\nScheppele star ted her career in the political science department at the University of Mi chigan in 1984 before moving to the law school at the University of Pennsy lvania in 1996 and then joining Princeton in 2005. She was the founding di rector of the gender program at Central European University Budapest and h as held visiting faculty positions in the law schools at Yale\, Harvard\, Erasmus/Rotterdam\, Humboldt/Berlin and\, in fall 2025\, Stanford.\n DTSTART:20260319T203000Z DTEND:20260319T230000Z LOCATION:Faculty Club\, CA\, QC\, Montreal\, H3A 0E5\, 3450 rue McTavish SUMMARY:Lin Centre 2026 Annual Lecture: Kim Scheppele (Princeton) “Counter- Constitutions: On Being the Object of a Coup” URL:https://www.mcgill.ca/channels/channels/event/lin-centre-2026-annual-le cture-kim-scheppele-princeton-counter-constitutions-being-object-coup-3661 41 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR