Mark Tushnet
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Mark Tushnet (born 1945 -) is a prominent critical legal studies proponent, constitutional law scholar, and author of many books. He received his B.A. from Harvard University and his J.D. from Yale University. While serving as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall, Tushnet authored a memo which dramatically influenced the opinion in Roe v. Wade. Tushnet was a professor at Georgetown University Law Center for many years and is one of the most radical constitutional law theorists in the country. He famously described critical legal studies as a "political location" and stated in an article in the Ohio State Law Journal in 1981 that, were he a justice, he would vote in favor of whichever side in a case he thought would best advance the agenda of international socialism. Professor Tushnet recently left Georgetown to join the faculty of Harvard Law School, where he is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law.
Tushnet is a main proponent of the idea that judicial review should be strongly limited and that the Constitution should be returned "to the people."
Tushnet has occasionally described himself as a "quasi-originalist", but has not explained precisely what that means. He is an advocate of "popular constitutionalism," the idea that structural political constraints, not the Supreme Court, are sufficient to protect the rights enumerated in the Constitution.
His daughter Rebecca Tushnet is an assistant professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center.
[edit] Books
The New Constitutional Order (Princeton U. Press 2003).
The Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies (Peter Cane & Mark V. Tushnet eds., Oxford U. Press 2003).
Defining the Field of Comparative Constitutional Law (Vicki C. Jackson & Mark Tushnet eds., Praeger 2002).
And L. Michael Seidman et al., Constitutional Law (Little, Brown and Co. 4th ed. 2001).
Et al., Federal Courts in the 21st Century: Cases and Materials (LexisNexis 2001).
Thurgood Marshall: His Speeches, Writings, Arguments, Opinions, and Reminiscences (Mark V. Tushnet ed., Lawrence Hill Books 2001).
Making Constitutional Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1961-1991 (1997).
Brown v. Board of Education: The Battle for Integration (1995).
The Warren Court in Historical and Political Perspective (Mark V. Tushnet ed., 1993).
Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1936-1961 (1994).
The NAACP's Legal Strategy Against Segregated Education, 1925-1950 (1987).
The American Law of Slavery, 1810-1860: Considerations of Humanity and Interest (1981).
And L. Michael Seidman et al., Constitutional Law (Little, Brown and Co. Supp. 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 2d ed. 1991, Supp. 1992, 1995, 1996, 3d ed. 1996, Supp. 1998, 4th ed. 2001).
And Vicki C. Jackson, Comparative Constitutional Law (Foundation Press 1999).
Taking the Constitution Away From the Courts (Princeton University Press 1999), excerpted in Great Cases in Constitutional Law (Robert P. George ed., Princeton University Press, 2000) (reprinting chapter 1 in substance). Symposium of Commentaries on this book: 34 University of Richmond Law Review 359-566 (2000).
And L. Michael Seidman et al., Teacher's Manual to The First Amendment (Aspen Law & Business 1999).
And Francisco Forrest Martin, The Rights International Companion to Constitutional Law: An International Human Rights Law Supplement (Kluwer Law International 1999).
And L. Michael Seidman, Remnants of Belief: Contemporary Constitutional Issues (Oxford University Press 1996).
Constitutional Issues: The Death Penalty (Facts On File, Inc. 1994).
Constitutional Law (International Library of Essays in Law & Legal Theory) (Mark V. Tushnet, ed., New York University Press 1992).
Comparative Constitutional Federalism: Europe and America (Mark V. Tushnet ed., Greenwood Press 1990).
Central America and the Law: The Constitution, Civil Liberties, and the Courts (South End Press 1988).
Red, White, and Blue: A Critical Analysis of Constitutional Law (Harvard University Press 1988).
[edit] External links
[edit] Quotes
- "This what you call a 'deep-doo-doo' problem -- if you think the Senate will flip a coin to impeach a judge, then you're already in deep doo-doo." (He has also referred to this as the "you're screwed" problem.)
