Nikolas Bowie

Nikolas Bowie is the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He is a historian who teaches courses in federal constitutional law, state constitutional law, and local government law. His research focuses on critical legal histories of democracy in the United States.

Professor Bowie was the 2021 recipient of the Sacks-Freund Award for Teaching Excellence from the graduating class at Harvard Law School. His scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Law and History Review, the Stanford Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. He has also written essays for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate, and other publications. 

In addition to teaching and writing, Professor Bowie is active in local government and in the civil rights community in the Boston area. He is on the boards of the ACLU of Massachusetts, Lawyers for Civil Rights, MassVote, and People’s Parity Project. He is also an avid marathoner.

Professor Bowie received a BA in history from Yale and a JD and PhD in history from Harvard. He clerked for Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the US Supreme Court.