Each of the ten case videos in the Rule of Law Teaching Project is authored and narrated by one of these leading legal scholars and committed teachers.
Professor Jennifer Chacón is the Bruce Tyson Mitchell Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. Her cutting-edge scholarship explores the nexus of immigration law, constitutional law, and criminal law and procedure. [Full Bio]
She has contributed a video on Arizona v. United States, a case about federal preemption and immigration law, in which the Supreme Court explains how states cannot legislate in ways that interfere with federal immigration policies. You can read more at: Jennifer M. Chacón, Overcriminalizing Immigration, 102 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 613 (2012).
Professor Guy-Uriel Charles is the Charles J. Ogletree Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School where he also directs the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. Professor Charles is a nationally renowned expert on election law, race, and democratic theory. [Full Bio]
He has contributed a video on Lassiter v. Northampton, a voting rights case, in which the Supreme Court upheld North Carolina’s literacy test requirement even though it was widely used to disenfranchise Black voters. You can read more at: Guy-Uriel Charles, Creating an Inclusive Political Order, The Regulatory Review, Mar. 21, 2022.
Professor John Coates is the John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School, where he also serves as Deputy Dean and Research Director of the Center on the Legal Profession. Professor Coates served as General Counsel and as Acting Director for the Division of Corporation Finance for the SEC. He is an expert in corporate governance, finance, mergers and acquisitions, and Wall Street. [Full Bio]
He has contributed a video on Central Hudson v. Public Service Commission, in which the Supreme Court created strong First Amendment protections for commercial speech in ways that have greatly benefited corporations. You can read more at: John Coates, Corporate Speech & the First Amendment: History, Data, and Implications, 30 Const’l Commentary 223 (2015).
Professor Sharon Dolovich is Professor of Law at UCLA Law School and a leading scholar of prisons, punishment, and the Eighth Amendment. She is Director of the UCLA Prison Law and Policy Program, and the founder of the UCLA-Law Behind Bars Data Project. [Full Bio]
She has contributed a video on Farmer v. Brennan, a prisoners’ rights case, in which the Supreme Court set the standard for proving an Eighth Amendment violation so high as to make it extremely difficult for people in prison to challenge harmful conditions of confinement. You can read more at: Sharon Dolovich, Cruelty, Prison Conditions, and the Eighth Amendment, 84 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 881 (2009).
Professor Michael Kang is the Class of 1940 Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. He is a nationally recognized expert on campaign finance, voting rights, redistricting, judicial elections, and corporate governance. In 2021 he was appointed by President Biden to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. [Full Bio]
He has contributed a video on Citizens United v. FEC, in which the Supreme Court decided that the First Amendment bars constraints on independent electioneering expenditures, thereby deregulating a vast swath of election spending. You can read more at: Michael S. Kang, The End of Campaign Finance Law as We Knew It, 98 Virginia L. Rev. 1 (2013).
Professor Leah Litman is Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. She is an influential constitutional law scholar with expertise in, among other things, federal courts, habeas corpus, and reproductive rights. She is co-founder of the prize-winning podcast about the Supreme Court, Strict Scrutiny, and author of the best-selling book Lawless. [Full Bio]
She has contributed a video on United States v. Morrison, a case about judicial supremacy, Congressional authority, and gender-based discrimination, in which the Supreme Court held that Congress lacked authority to pass legislation protecting women from gender-based violence committed by private individuals. You can read more at: Leah Litman & Kate Shaw, The Originalist Case for Terrorizing Women, Strict Scrutiny, Feb. 13, 2023.
Professor Melissa Murray is the Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law at NYU Law School, and the Faculty Director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center. She is a nationally renowned expert in family law, constitutional law, and reproductive rights and justice. She is co-founder of the prize-winning podcast about the Supreme Court, Strict Scrutiny. [Full Bio]
She has contributed a video on Griswold v. Connecticut, a reproductive rights case, in which the Supreme Court developed the foundations of its privacy jurisprudence when it struck down Connecticut’s criminal ban on the use of contraception. You can read more at: Melissa Murray, Overlooking Equality on the Road to Griswold , 124 Yale L.J. Forum 324 (2015).
Professor Alexandra Natapoff is the Lee S. Kreindler Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, an award-winning legal scholar, and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. She writes about misdemeanor courts, public defense, plea bargaining, wrongful convictions, and race and inequality in the criminal system. Professor Natapoff formerly served as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Baltimore, Maryland. She created the Rule of Law Teaching Project. [Full Bio]
She has contributed a video on Atwater v. Lago Vista, a case in which the Supreme Court decided that police may effectuate a full custodial arrest and jail people for minor offenses–such as traffic violations–that do not themselves permit incarceration as punishment. You can read more at : Alexandra Natapoff, Atwater and the Misdemeanor Carceral State, 133 Harvard L. Rev. Forum 147 (2020).
Professor Douglas NeJaime is the Anne Urowsky Professor of Law at Yale Law School and one of the nation’s leading scholars of family law, parenthood, same-sex rights, and constitutional law. He has been a leader on national efforts to reform parentage laws to accommodate families that feature nonbiological parent-child relationships, including families formed by same-sex couples and through assisted reproduction. [Full Bio]
He has contributed a video on Obergefell v. Hodges, a case about same-sex marriage, in which the Supreme Court declared that same-sex couples have the fundamental right to marry and that states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. You can read more at: Douglas NeJaime, Marriage Equality and the New Parenthood, 129 Harv. L. Rev. 1185 (2016).
Professor Richard Re is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and a leading scholar on constitutional law, federal courts, and criminal procedure. He has received numerous awards for his teaching, and appears regularly in the national media. [Full Bio]
He has contributed a video on Marks v. United States, a case in which the Supreme Court created an influential and controversial rule about the creation of judicial precedent in a divided court where there is no majority opinion. You can read more at: Richard M. Re, Beyond the Marks Rule, 132 Harvard L. Rev. 1942 (2019).
