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Akhil Reed Amar

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Akhil Amar
Amar in 2014
Born (1958-09-06) September 6, 1958 (age 67)
Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.
EducationYale University (BA, JD)
TitleSterling Professor of Law and Political Science
RelativesVikram Amar (brother)
AwardsPaul M. Bator Award (1993)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007)
Barry Prize (2024)
Academic work
DisciplineConstitutional law
InstitutionsYale University
Notable students

Akhil Reed Amar (born September 6, 1958) is an American legal scholar who is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University.[1] He is a scholar of originalism, executive power, judicial power, the Bill of Rights, federalism, constitutional history, and criminal procedure.

Amar received his law degree from Yale Law School. After clerking for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, he joined the Yale Law School faculty in 1985 at the age of 26.[2] He is Yale's only living professor to have received the University's unofficial triple crown: the title of Sterling Professor for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching, and the Lamar Award for alumni service.[3]

His work has been cited in more than fifty U.S. Supreme Court cases by justices nominated by presidents of both parties—the most of any scholar under 70.[4] Additionally, according to Fred R. Shapiro's 2021 study of lifetime citations in law reviews, Amar is also the most-cited American constitutional scholar still under age 70.[5]

Early life and education

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Amar was born on September 6, 1958, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.[6] He has two brothers, one of whom is Vikram Amar, who is also a legal scholar and is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis School of Law.[7] His parents were young physicians from India who met at the University of Michigan.[6] His father became a professor at the University of California, San Francisco.[6] His middle name comes from his father's mentor, Reed M. Nesbit.[6]

Amar grew up in Walnut Creek, California, and graduated from Las Lomas High School in 1976.[8] He then attended Yale University, where he double majored in history and economics.[1] He was a member of the Yale Debate Association, winning its Thacher Memorial Prize, and was chair of the Liberal Party of the Yale Political Union.[9] He met Richard Brookhiser in his first year in college,[6] and graduated as a resident of Ezra Stiles College.[10] Amar graduated from Yale in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.[9] He had developed a serious interest in history studying under professors Edmund Morgan and John Morton Blum.[6]

In 1981, Amar entered Yale Law School, where he became an editor of The Yale Law Journal[11] and had Robert Bork as a teacher.[6] His most notable mentors were Guido Calabresi, Owen Fiss, and Bruce Ackerman.[12] He graduated in 1984 with a Juris Doctor degree and received the Peres Prize for the best student essay in the Yale Law Journal. After law school, Amar was a law clerk for then-judge Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 1984 to 1985.[9]

Academic career

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Amar speaks with Justice Clarence Thomas (left) at the National Archives in 2012

Amar joined the faculty of Yale Law School in 1985 as an assistant professor, became an associate professor in 1988, and was promoted to full professor in 1990. From 1993 to 2008, he held the Southmayd Professorship of Law.[9] In 2008, he was appointed Sterling Professor of Law, the law school’s highest academic rank.[1]

Amar's former students include U.S. senators Cory Booker, Michael Bennet, Chris Coons, and Josh Hawley, as well as government officials and judges including Jake Sullivan, Neal Katyal, Alex Azar, Michael Barr, Brian Deese, Stephanos Bibas, Goodwin Liu, and Rob Bonta.[13] Justice Brett Kavanaugh briefly attended one of Amar’s constitutional law courses while a student at Yale Law School.[14] He is the author of more than one hundred law review articles[4] and several books, including The Words That Made Us: America's Constitutional Conversation, 1760–1840 and its sequel Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840–1920. Amar has stated that the books are part of a planned trilogy, with a third volume tentatively titled Earth's Best Hope: America's Constitution, 1920–Present.[15] Amar has described himself as a pro-choice liberal.[16] Some of his positions have drawn criticism from progressive commentators and legal scholars.[17][18][19] He supported Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court[20] and argued that overturning Roe v. Wade would not undermine other privacy-related rights, including the right to use contraceptives and the right to interracial marriage, recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut and Loving v. Virginia, respectively.[21]

Honors and awards

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Amar’s books have received several awards and recognitions. In 1998–99, he received an ABA Certificate of Merit for The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction.[22] His 2005 book, America’s Constitution: A Biography, received the ABA's annual Silver Gavel Award.[23] His 2012 book, America’s Unwritten Constitution, was named one of the 50 notable nonfiction books of the year by The Washington Post.[24] His 2015 book, The Constitution Today, was included on Time magazine’s list of top nonfiction books of the year.[25] His 2025 book Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840–1920 received the Abraham Lincoln Institute’s annual book award.[26]

His books have also received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly[27] and Kirkus Reviews.[28]

In 1993, Amar received the annual Paul M. Bator Award from the Federalist Society.[29] In 2007, he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[30]

In 2008, U.S. presidential candidate Mike Gravel stated that, if elected president, he would nominate Amar to the Supreme Court.[31]

In 2015, President Barack Obama nominated Amar to the National Council on the Humanities.[32] The Senate did not hold a confirmation vote. That same year, Amar received the William Clyde DeVane Medal for Undergraduate Teaching Excellence, Yale’s highest teaching award.[33]

In 2017, he received the Outstanding Scholar Award from the American Bar Foundation[34] and the Association of Yale Alumni’s Howard R. Lamar Award for Outstanding Faculty Service to Yale Alumni.[35] In 2024, Amar received the Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement from the American Academy of Sciences and Letters.[36]

Professional activities and public engagement

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Amar has testified before the United States Congress on constitutional law issues at the invitation of members of both major political parties.[37] He has also delivered endowed lectures at universities, colleges, and schools in the United States and abroad.[9] From 1999 to 2004, he was a contributing editor to The New Republic.[38] In the early 2000s, he participated in efforts to establish the National Constitution Center.[9] He has served as a trustee of the American Exchange Project and the New York Historical.[9]

Media, podcasting, and commentary

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Amar has participated in a range of media and public educational projects. In the early 2000s, he served as an informal consultant to the television series The West Wing.[39] He was referenced by name in a 2004 episode as a Yale Law School classmate of the fictional character Josh Lyman. Several later episodes addressed themes related to Amar’s published work on presidential succession and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.[40][41]

Personal life

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Amar and his wife, Vinita Parkash, married in 1989 and have three children.[42] He is politically a pro-choice Democrat.

Selected works

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Books

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  • The Constitution and Criminal Procedure: First Principles (1997) ISBN 0-300-06678-3
  • For the People (with Alan Hirsch) (1997) ISBN 0-684-87102-5
  • The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction (1998) ISBN 0-300-07379-8
  • Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (ed. with Paul Brest, Sanford Levinson, and Jack M. Balkin) (2000) ISBN 0-7355-5062-X
  • America's Constitution: A Biography (2005) ISBN 1-4000-6262-4
  • America's Unwritten Constitution: The Precedents and Principles We Live By (2012) ISBN 978-0-465-02957-0
  • The Bill of Rights Primer: A Citizen's Guidebook to the American Bill of Rights (with Les Adams) (2013) ISBN 978-1-62087-572-8
  • The Law of the Land: A Grand Tour of Our Constitutional Republic (2015) ISBN 978-0-465-06590-5
  • The Constitution Today: Timeless Lessons for the Issues of Our Era (2016) ISBN 978-0-465-09633-6
  • The Words that Made Us: America's Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840 (2021) ISBN 978-0-465-09635-0
  • Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840-1920 (2025) ISBN 978-1-541-60519-0

Articles

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Tam, Derek (November 7, 2008). "Amar Earns Sterling Rank". Yale Daily News.
  2. ^ "Amar, Hill, and Holloway honored for service to alumni". Retrieved May 2, 2026.
  3. ^ "Akhil Reed Amar". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved December 9, 2025.
  4. ^ a b "Akhil Reed Amar". Yale Law School. Retrieved May 2, 2026.
  5. ^ Shapiro, Fred R. (2021). "The Most-Cited Legal Scholars Revisited". University of Chicago Law Review.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Nordlinger, Jay (May 22, 2022). "A Professor and the American Heritage". National Review.
  7. ^ "Vikram D. Amar". U. C. Davis School of Law. The Regents of the University of California. September 2, 2021.
  8. ^ "Obama Names Yale Professor to Key Administration Post". India-West. May 20, 2015. Archived from the original on August 4, 2019. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Amar, Akhil (July 2021). "CV – Akhil Reed Amar" (PDF). Yale Law School. Retrieved April 18, 2024.
  10. ^ "Notable Alumni | Ezra Stiles College". Ezra Stiles College. Yale University. 2010. Retrieved April 18, 2024.
  11. ^ "YLJ Volume 93 Masthead". Retrieved April 26, 2026.
  12. ^ "Amar Albany Law School" (PDF). Retrieved April 18, 2026.
  13. ^ "Akhil Amar: Looking at How America Governs Itself". Zip06. May 25, 2022. Retrieved April 18, 2024.
  14. ^ "Filling the Court: From Midnight Judges to Court Packing to Garland, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh". Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. Hunter College. September 2018. Retrieved April 18, 2024.
  15. ^ Amar, Akhil Reed. Born Equal, pp. 612, 624.
  16. ^ "The Yale Law Professor Who Is Anti-Anti-Roe". The Free Press. Retrieved May 2, 2026.
  17. ^ Lemieux, Scott (June 24, 2022). "Getting Real About the Post-'Roe' World". The American Prospect. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
  18. ^ "A Liberal Law Professor on His Endorsement of Kavanaugh". NPR. September 9, 2018. Retrieved May 2, 2026.
  19. ^ Koppelman, Andrew (May 22, 2022). "Akhil Amar and the Dobbs draft". The Hill. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
  20. ^ Amar, Akhil Reed (July 10, 2018). "A Liberal's Case for Brett Kavanaugh". The New York Times.
  21. ^ Amar, Akhil Reed (May 13, 2022). "The End of Roe v. Wade". The Wall Street Journal.
  22. ^ https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300127089/the-bill-of-rights/
  23. ^ "American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award". Goodreads. Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  24. ^ "Best of 2012: 50 notable works of nonfiction". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  25. ^ "Top 10 Everything of 2016". Time. Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  26. ^ "Lincoln Institute 2026 Symposium". Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  27. ^ "Books by Akhil Reed Amar and Complete Book Reviews". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved August 24, 2025.
  28. ^ "Books by Akhil Reed Amar". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved August 24, 2025.
  29. ^ "Paul M. Bator Award Recipients". Federalist Society. Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  30. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 10, 2011. Retrieved April 17, 2011.
  31. ^ Kaplan, Thomas (February 7, 2008). "Gravel's justice of choice: Amar". Yale Daily News. Archived from the original on October 24, 2008. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
  32. ^ "President Obama announces more key administration posts". Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  33. ^ "Amar and Crothers cited for teaching and scholarship". Yale Bulletin and Calendar. Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  34. ^ "ABF Outstanding Scholar Award". Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  35. ^ "Amar, Hill, and Holloway honored for service to alumni". Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  36. ^ "Awards". American Academy of Sciences & Letters. Retrieved October 27, 2024.
  37. ^ "Testimony Before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court, Akhil Reed Amar" (PDF). Senate Judiciary Committee. Retrieved May 3, 2026.
  38. ^ "Akhil Amar Author Page". The New Republic. Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  39. ^ "After the Veep, Redraw the Line". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  40. ^ Amar, Akhil Reed & Amar, Vikram David, "Is the Presidential Succession Law Constitutional?", 48 Stanford Law Review 113 (1995–1996).
  41. ^ Amar, Akhil Reed, "Applications and Implications of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment" (2009).
  42. ^ Akhil Reed Amar résumé
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