Stephen Griffin

Stephen Griffin specializes in constitutional theory and history. His work emphasizes understanding American constitutional law from an interdisciplinary, historical point of view that is theoretically informed, and he tries to build bridges between scholars in law and political science.

Griffin, who joined the Tulane Law faculty in 1989, is the author of American Constitutionalism: From Theory to Politics (Princeton University Press 1996) and Long Wars and the Constitution (Harvard University Press 2013). He also co-edited a reader now in its fourth edition, Constitutional Theory: Arguments and Perspectives (Lexis 2014). His writing, which includes more than 40 articles, book chapters and reviews on constitutional law and theory, has been cited in political science and history journals as well as law reviews.

He received the Sumter Marks Award for his scholarly publications in 2000 and the Felix Frankfurter Distinguished Teaching Award, the Law School’s highest teaching award, from the Class of 2002. He was Tulane Law School’s Vice Dean of Academic Affairs in 2001-04 and 2006-09 and Interim Dean in 2009-10.

He is a member of the American Political Science Association and has chaired the Association of American Law Schools section on Constitutional Law. He helped organize a joint AALS/APSA Conference on Constitutional Law held in 2002. Before being hired at Tulane, he was a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago and research instructor in law at New York University.