Vicki C. Jackson, Thurgood Marshall Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard, and an expert in constitutional law, federalism, and gender equality, has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
“Vicki’s superb expertise in comparative constitutional law, federalism, gender and the law, federal courts, and the United States Supreme Court reflects her special combination of meticulous care and reflective engagement with lawyers, judges, and theorists around the world,” said Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow. “This selection reflects the high esteem in which she is held among distinguished scholars and lawyers, and it’s an honor so well deserved.”
Members of the 2014 class include winners of the Nobel Prize; the Wolf Prize; the Pulitzer Prize; National Medal of the Arts; MacArthur, Guggenheim, and Fulbright Fellowships; and Grammy, Emmy, Oscar, and Tony Awards.
Jackson has been teaching at HLS since 2011, when she was also named the school’s first Thurgood Marshall Professor of Constitutional Law. Prior to joining the Harvard Law School faculty, she was the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center.
She has written two books with HLS Professor Mark Tushnet: a coursebook, Comparative Constitutional Law (Foundation Press, 2d ed. 2006) and an edited collection of scholarly essays, Defining the Field of Comparative Constitutional Law (Praeger, 2002). The third edition of Comparative Constitutional Law is forthcoming later this year. Her other books include Constitutional Engagement in a Transnational Era (Oxford University Press, 2010), Federal Courts Stories (co-editor with Judith Resnik, Thomson Reuters/Foundation Press, 2010), and Inside the Supreme Court: The Institution and Its Procedures (co-author with Susan Low Bloch and Thomas G. Kattenmaker, West, 2d ed. 2008). Jackson has served as an Articles Editor for I.Con, the International Journal of Constitutional Law, and is now on its Board of Advisors. She has been published in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal and Georgetown Law Journal, among many other scholarly journals and publications.
Last year, Jackson was appointed as an amicus curiae by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Windsor, and asked to argue that the government’s agreement with the court below that the DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] statute was unconstitutional deprived the Supreme Court of jurisdiction and that the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives lacked standing in the case.
Prior to joining the Georgetown faculty, Jackson was an associate and then partner at the firm of Rogovin, Huge & Lenzner in Washington, D.C. She also served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; to Judge Murray Gurfein, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit; and to Judge Morris Lasker, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. Jackson holds a B.A. summa cum laude, from Yale College, where she was Phi Beta Kappa and majored in history. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
A full list of new AAA&S members is available here and a list of the entire membership can be found here.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, based in Cambridge, Mass., is one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to Academy publications and studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, the humanities and culture, and education.
Other members of the HLS faculty who have been selected as fellows in previous years, include Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84, Victor Brudney, Robert Clark ’72, Richard Fallon, Roger Fisher LL.B. ’48, Charles Fried, Mary Ann Glendon, Jack Goldsmith, Annette Gordon-Reed ’84, Charles Haar LL.B. ’48, Morton Horwitz LL.B. ’67, Elena Kagan ’86, Benjamin Kaplan, Louis Kaplow ’81, Duncan Kennedy, Randall Kennedy, Michael Klarman, John F. Manning `85, Daniel Meltzer ’75, Frank Michelman LL.B. ’60, Martha Minow, Robert Mnookin LL.B. ’68, Gerald L. Neuman ’80, Mark Roe ’75, Steven Shavell, William Stuntz , Cass Sunstein ’78 , Laurence Tribe ’66, Mark Tushnet, Roberto Mangabeira Unger LL.M. ’70 S.J.D. ’76, Adrian Vermeule ’93, Elizabeth Warren, and David Wilkins ’80.