Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale College, summa cum laude, in 1980 and from Yale Law School in 1984, and clerking for then Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, Amar joined the Yale faculty in 1985 at the age of 26. He is Yale’s only living professor to have won the university’s unofficial triple crown — the Sterling Chair for scholarship, the DeVane Medal for teaching and the Lamar Award for alumni service.
Amar’s work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in over four dozen cases — tops among living non-emeritus scholars. He was an informal consultant to the popular TV show “The West Wing,” and his scholarship has been showcased on many broadcasts, including “The Colbert Report,” “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” “Morning Joe,” “Anderson Cooper 360,” “Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream” and “Erin Burnett OutFront.”
He is the author of more than a hundred law review articles and several books. His latest and most ambitious book, “The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840,” came out in May 2021. He also has a free weekly podcast, “Amarica’s Constitution.”
His remarks will be broadcast live on BYUtv, BYUtv.org (and archived for on-demand streaming), KBYU-TV 11, Classical 89 FM, BYUradio 107.9 FM, and SiriusXM 143. Video, text, and audio are archived on speeches.byu.edu.