The acclaimed Father of the Constitution of the United States, James Madison, is often quoted saying, “All men having power ought to be distrusted.” Although there’s no evidence that he used those words, he did argue for the inclusion of checks and balances in the Constitution to guard against tyranny by any one branch of government.

The enumerated powers granted the president in Article II of the Constitution include serving as chief of the Executive Branch of the government, serving as commander-in-chief, and making treaties and appointing officers. There is also the charge to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

Over the last 235 years, legal challenges have shaped our understanding of Article II and every other part of the Constitution.

For example, Article I grants Congress the authority to collect funds and provide plans to spend them. But what if a president doesn’t want to spend the money they’re given? After President Richard Nixon sought to withhold money from programs he didn’t like, Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, establishing procedures by which Congress may consider presidential withholdings.

That act was tested again in January when the Trump administration paused all federal financial assistance. The courts have since temporarily restrained that pause and ordered funding to be released, but the issue is not settled.

One tool used by every president (except William Henry Harrison who died just a month after taking office) is the executive order. They aren’t laws, but directives to agents of the government to do things the president is empowered to do under Article II.

The most impactful one of those was certainly the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, which changed the legal status of 3.5 million African Americans held in slavery in Confederate states.

President Franklin Roosevelt issued more than 3,700 executive orders. During the Great Depression, one executive order compelled Americans to sell monetary gold to the government and another established the Works Progress Administration. Five of Roosevelt’s orders were overturned by the courts, although sadly not the order that confined 120,000 Japanese Americans to concentration camps during World War II.

Today, in just five weeks the second Trump administration has issued a flurry of executive orders imposing tariffs, pausing foreign aid, exiting the World Health Organization and the Paris (Climate) Agreement, restricting immigration, establishing the Department of Government Efficiency, renaming Mount McKinley and the Gulf of America, and much more.

Of particular significance to the higher education community are two issues. The first is a threat to withhold federal funding to institutions that employ what that order calls “illegal DEI and DEIA policies.” The other came in the form of an announcement by the National Institutes of Health that it would limit payments for “indirect costs” in research grants to just 15% in an effort to save the government billions of dollars.

Many of the new administration’s orders and actions have been challenged in federal courts and temporarily stayed pending legal review. But the question remains, what are the limits of presidential power and is there any way to tell what’s going to happen next?

Joining University of Maryland, Baltimore President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, on Virtual Face to Face on Feb. 25 to shed light on these issues were three experts from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law: Dean and Professor Renée Hutchins Laurent, JD, University System of Maryland Regents Professor Mark Graber, JD, PhD, and Jeff Sovern, JD, the Michael Millemann Professor of Consumer Law.

This edition of Virtual Face to Face runs one hour and may be viewed using the link at the top of this page.