Michael J. Klarman (born 1959) is an American legal historian and scholar of

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in fe ...

. Currently, Klarman is the

Kirkland & Ellis Kirkland & Ellis LLP is an American multinational law firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1909, Kirkland & Ellis is the largest law firm in the world by revenue and the seventh-largest by number of attorneys, and was the first la ...

Professor at Harvard Law School. Formerly, he was

James Monroe James Monroe ( ; April 28, 1758July 4, 1831) was an American statesman, lawyer, diplomat, and Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was ...

Distinguished Professor of Law, Professor of History, and Elizabeth D. and Richard A. Merrill Research Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Early life and education

Klarman grew up in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

. His father,

Herbert E. Klarman Herbert E. Klarman (December 21, 1916 – June 17, 1999) was an American/Polish health economist. He was a professor at Johns Hopkins University, State University of New York, and New York University. He was the recipient of a List of Guggenheim F ...

, was a public health economist. He is the brother of investor

Seth Klarman Seth Andrew Klarman (born May 21, 1957) is an American billionaire investor, hedge fund manager, and author. He is a proponent of value investing. He is the chief executive and portfolio manager of the Baupost Group, a Boston-based private inv ...

Klarman holds a J.D. from

Stanford Law School Stanford Law School (Stanford Law or SLS) is the law school of Stanford University, a private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, it is regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world. Stanford La ...

, a D.Phil. from

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

(where he was a

Marshall Scholar The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious sc ...

) and an M.A. and B.A. from 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 ...

. After his graduation from law school, he clerked for then-Judge

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by Presiden ...

when she was on the

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia 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 co ...

."Michael Klarman to join HLS faculty,"
Harvard Law School press release, January 24, 2008.

Scholarship

Klarman specializes in the constitutional history of race. He contends that the Supreme Court of the United States has historically been hostile to the rights of minorities and has not consistently enforced constitutional protections for them. Klarman argues that civil rights protections arise out of social mores from which the court takes its cue. Klarman has also defended political process theory as a method of constitutional interpretation.Klarman, Michael J. (May 1991). "The Puzzling Resistance to Political Process Theory". ''Virginia Law Review''. 77 (4): 747–832. doi:10.2307/1073297. JSTOR 1073297.

Awards

* 2005

Bancroft Prize The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948, with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, in his memory and that of his brother, ...

Works

* Discussion between Klarman and

Michael W. McConnell Michael William McConnell (born May 18, 1955) is an American constitutional law scholar who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from 2002 to 2009. Since 2009, McConnell has been a ...

regarding ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

'' :* ::*''Response to McConnell:'' :::*''Response to Klarman:'' * *
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References

External links

* ttp://www.virginialawreview.org/inbrief.php?s=inbrief&p=2008/02/18/index "Book Excerpt: ''Unfinished Business''", ''Virginia Law Review'', February 18, 2008* Living people Alumni of the University of Oxford Harvard Law School faculty University of Pennsylvania alumni University of Virginia School of Law faculty Stanford Law School alumni 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Marshall Scholars Bancroft Prize winners 1959 births American male non-fiction writers {{US-law-bio-stub