Geoffrey R. Stone (born 1946) is an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
law professor
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...
and noted
First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
scholar. He is currently the
Edward H. Levi
Edward Hirsch Levi (June 26, 1911 – March 7, 2000) was an American law professor, academic leader, and government lawyer. He served as dean of the University of Chicago Law School from 1950 to 1962, president of the University of Chicago from ...
Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the
University of Chicago Law School
The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is consistently ranked among the best and most prestigious law schools in the world, and has many dist ...
.
Biography
Stone completed a B.S. degree in 1968 at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
, and a
J.D. degree in 1971 at the
University of Chicago Law School
The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is consistently ranked among the best and most prestigious law schools in the world, and has many dist ...
, where he was editor-in-chief of the
University of Chicago Law Review
The ''University of Chicago Law Review'' (Maroonbook abbreviation: ''U Chi L Rev'') is the flagship law journal published by the University of Chicago Law School. It is among the top five most cited law reviews in the world. Up until 2020, it utili ...
. He clerked for Judge
J. Skelly Wright of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate cou ...
in 1971–72, and then for Justice
William J. Brennan Jr.
William Joseph "Bill" Brennan Jr. (April 25, 1906 – July 24, 1997) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1956 to 1990. He was the seventh-longest serving justice ...
of the
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
in 1972–73.
Stone has been a law professor at Chicago since 1973. He served as
dean
Dean may refer to:
People
* Dean (given name)
* Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin
* Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk
* Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean
Titles
* ...
of the Law School from 1987 to 1994, and as
provost of the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
from 1994 to 2002. He also served as Interim Dean of the Law School from July 1, 2015 to November 1, 2015 while the School searched for a replacement for
Michael H. Schill.
Stone is a member of the Board of Directors of the
American Constitution Society
The American Constitution Society (ACS) is a progressive legal organization. ACS was created as a counterweight to, and is modeled after, the Federalist Society, and is often described as its progressive counterpart.
Founded in 2001 following t ...
, the Board of Advisors of the
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
, and the Chair of the Board of the Chicago Children's Choir. He has served as a Vice President of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
and as a member of the Executive Committee of the
Association of American Law Schools
The Association of American Law Schools (AALS), formed in 1900, is a non-profit organization of 176 law schools in the United States. An additional 19 schools pay a fee to receive services but are not members. AALS incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non ...
. He is a frequent author of op-eds in the
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
, the
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
, the
Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
, the
Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
, and the
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
, and he writes regularly for the
Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
.
Writing
Stone’s book, ''
Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism'' (2004) received the
Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights (formerly the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, or RFK Center) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit human rights advocacy organization. It was named after United States Senator Robert F. Kenned ...
Award for the Human Rights Book of the Year, the
Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes currently have nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller ( ...
as the Best Book in History, the
American Political Science Association
The American Political Science Association (APSA) is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903 in the Tilton Memorial Library (now Tilton Hall) of Tulane University in New Orleans, ...
’s Kammerer Award for the Best Book of the Year in Political Science, the Goldsmith Award from the
Kennedy School of Harvard University
The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...
for the Best Book of the Year in Public Affairs, and the Scribes Award for the Best Book of the Year in Law.
Stone's other books include ''Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America's Origins to the Twenty-First Century'' (2017), ''Top Secret: When Our Government Keeps Us in the Dark'' (2007), ''War and Liberty: An American Dilemma'' (2007), and ''Democracy and Equality: The Enduring Constitutional Vision of the Warren Court'' (2019) (with fellow Chicago professor
David A. Strauss
David A. Strauss is an American legal scholar who is currently the Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. He is a constitutional law scholar and the author of ''The Living Constitution'' (201 ...
).
He is an editor of the ''
Supreme Court Review'' and he is co-author of "Constitutional Law," "The First Amendment," "The First Amendment in the Modern State," and "The Bill of Rights in Modern Society." He is currently chief editor of a twenty-volume series, ''Inalienable Rights'', which is published by the
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
. Authors in this series include
Richard Posner
Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American jurist and legal scholar who served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chica ...
,
Laurence Tribe
Laurence Henry Tribe (born October 10, 1941) is an American legal scholar who is a University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He previously served as the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard Law School.
A constitutional law sc ...
,
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz ( ; born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer and former law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appoin ...
,
Martha Nussbaum
Martha Craven Nussbaum (; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosoph ...
,
Mark Tushnet
Mark Victor Tushnet (born 18 November 1945) is an American legal scholar. He specializes in constitutional law and theory, including comparative constitutional law, and is currently the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law Sch ...
,
Jack Rakove
Jack Norman Rakove (born June 4, 1947) is an American historian, author and professor at Stanford University. He is a Pulitzer Prize winner.
Biography
Rakove was born in Chicago to Political Science Professor Milton L. Rakove (1918–1983) ...
,
Larry Lessig
Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvar ...
,
Louis Michael Seidman
Louis Michael Seidman (born 1947) is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., a widely read constitutional law scholar and major proponent of the critical legal studies movemen ...
, and
Kathleen Sullivan Kathleen Sullivan may refer to:
* Kathleen Sullivan (lawyer) (born 1955), American lawyer and former dean of Stanford Law School
* Kathleen Sullivan (journalist) (born 1953), American television journalist
* Kathleen Sullivan Alioto
Kathleen Sul ...
, among others.
Stone has written about the religion of Supreme Court justices, notably as to how they relate to judicial decisions about
abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...
. He has argued that five sitting Catholic judges effectively prevented the legalization of
intact dilation and extraction
Intact dilation and extraction (D&X, IDX, or intact D&E) is a surgical procedure that removes an intact fetus from the uterus. The procedure is used both after miscarriages and for abortions in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.
In ...
abortion in ''
Gonzales v. Carhart
''Gonzales v. Carhart'', 550 U.S. 124 (2007), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The case reached the high court after U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, appealed a rul ...
''.
Controversy
In March 2019, Stone drew criticism from some students for his long-standing use of the word
nigger
In the English language, the word ''nigger'' is an ethnic slur used against black people, especially African Americans. Starting in the late 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been progressively replaced by the euphemism , notably in cases ...
in his classroom discussions of the
fighting words doctrine, a limitation of the
First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
's guarantee of
freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
.
On March 7, 2019, Stone announced that he no longer intended to use the word in class. Stone remarked, "My conversation with the African-American students convinced me that the hurt and distraction caused by use of the word in the story are real and to be taken seriously. As a teacher, my goal is to be effective and I decided that use of the word in that story isn’t sufficiently important to justify the hurt and distraction it causes. For me, this is a great example of why free speech is important. It enables us to learn from each other."
See also
*
References
External links
* Video interview, May 200
Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Geoff
1946 births
Living people
First Amendment scholars
University of Pennsylvania alumni
University of Chicago Law School alumni
Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
University of Chicago faculty
Place of birth missing (living people)
American writers
Members of the American Philosophical Society