Tara Leigh Grove, Which Textualism?, 134 Harvard Law Review 265 (2020). In her wonderfully-titled article, ‘Which Textualism?’, Tara Leigh Grove uses the recently decided Bostock v Clayton County case to highlight a truth about statutory interpretation theory that scholars have largely ignored: Textualism is not a monolithic interpretive approach, but one that contains multiple competing strands. This observation is long overdue, and Bostock is an excellent vehicle for exploring its implications, given that the three separate opinions issued by the Court all claimed to employ a textualist interpretive approach – while reaching different outcomes. ‘Which Textualism?’ begins by differentiating between what Grove calls ‘formalistic textualism’, on the one hand, and ‘flexible textualism’, on the other … more
[Anita Krishnakumar, JOTWELL, 15 January]
First posted 2021-01-15 17:40:47
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