Paul Finkelman

Paul Finkelman
Born	(1949-11-15)November 15, 1949 Brooklyn,New York
Education	Ph.D.University of Chicago1976 MA University of Chicago 1972 BASyracuse University1971
Occupation(s)	historian, educator, author, speaker, legal scholar

Paul Finkelman(born November 15, 1949) is an American legalhistorian.He is the author or editor of more than 50 books on American legal and constitutional history, slavery, general American history and baseball. In addition, he has authored more than 200 scholarly articles on these and many other subjects. From 2017 - 2022, Finkelman served as the President and Chancellor ofGratz College,Melrose Park, Pennsylvania(the oldest independent Jewish college in the United States).

Education

Finkelman was born inBrooklyn,New York, and grew up inWatertown,where he attended public schools. He received his undergraduate degree inAmerican studiesfromSyracuse Universityin 1971, and his master's degree and doctorate in American history from theUniversity of Chicagoin 1972 and 1976. At Chicago, he was a student ofStanley Nider KatzandJohn Hope Franklinand a contributor to the volume,The Facts of Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin,edited by Eric Anderson & Alfred A. Moss, Jr. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, c.1991). Finkelman was also a Fellow in Law and Humanities atHarvard Law School,1982–83.

Academic positions and honors

Finkelman has held many positions teaching law and history includingGustavus Adolphus College,St. Peter, Minnesota(Robert E. and Susan T. Rydell Visiting Professor 2022-23),Albany Law School(President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy and Senior Fellow in the Government Law Center),University of Tulsa College of Law(Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law, 1999–2006),University of Akron School of Law(John F. Seiberling Professor, 1998–99),Cleveland-Marshall College of Law(Baker & Hostetler Visiting Professor, 1997–98),Hamline Law School(Distinguished Visiting Professor, spring 1997),University of Miami(Charlton W. Tebeau Visiting Research Professor, 1996),Chicago-Kent College of Law(fall 1995),Virginia Tech(1992–95),Brooklyn Law School,(1990–92),SUNY Binghamton(1984–1990),University of Texas(1978–84),University of Texas Law School(Spring 1982),Washington University in St. Louis(Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellow, 1977–78) andUniversity of California, Irvine(1976–77).

He received fellowships from theNational Endowment for the Humanities,theAmerican Philosophical Society,theLibrary of Congress,Yale University,Harvard Law School,and theAmerican Council of Learned Societies.American institutions at which he was a resident scholar include:Transylvania University,Mississippi State University,theUniversity of SeattleSchool of Law, andSt. Bonaventure University.In 2009, Finkelman gave the Nathan A. Huggins lectures at the W.E.B. DuBois Center at Harvard University. His 2018 bookSupreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation's Highest Courtwas based on these lectures. Since 2001, Finkelman has been a Distinguished Lecturer for theOrganization of American Historians.He received the Joseph L. Andrews Award fromAmerican Association of Law Librariesin 1986,and in 1995, was named Historian of the Year by the Virginia Social Science Association.

Finkelman has also lectured on behalf of the U.S. State Department in Colombia, Germany, Japan, and China. He spent part of the fall 2008 semester atOsaka Universityin Japan, as a visiting research scholar.He was twice a fellow of theJapan Society for the Promotion of Science,resident atNanzan Universityin Nagoya, Japan, in 2001 and in 2011–12.

In 2012, Finkelman was the John Hope Franklin Visiting Professor of American Legal History atDuke Law School.In spring 2014, he was the Justice Pike Hall, Jr. Visiting Professor at thePaul M. Hebert Law CenterofLouisiana State UniversityinBaton Rouge.Throughout 2014 and 2015, Finkelman was a Senior Fellow at the Penn Program on Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism at theUniversity of Pennsylvaniaand a Scholar-in-Residence at theNational Constitution Center.In 2015, he was appointed the Ariel F. Sallows Visiting Professor of Human Rights Law at theUniversity of Saskatchewan College of Law.In 2017 he was the John E. Murray Visiting Professor of Law at theUniversity of Pittsburgh School of Law.In the Fall of 2017 he held a Fulbright Chair in Human Rights and Social Justice at theUniversity of Ottawa.In 2022-23, he was a research affiliate at the Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies,Carleton University,Ottawa,Canada.

From 2003 to 2006, Finkelman was President of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Memorial Foundation. In 2009, he was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society. Since 2003, he has been a board member of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance at Yale University. Since 2001, he has been the scholar/convener of the annual scholarly conference of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society.

Expert witness and analyst

Called an "excellent legal historian",even by scholars who disagree with him, Finkelman was an expert witness againstAlabama Supreme CourtChief JusticeRoy MooreinGlassroth v. Moore(Al. 2002)(the "Ten Commandments" case), as well as an expert witness for the plaintiff inPopov v. Hayashi(S.F. Sup. Ct. CA, 2002) (determining who ownedBarry Bonds's 73rd home run ball). Professor Finkelman has also been part ofamicus curiaebriefs for cases related toGuantanamo Bay detainment camp,gay marriage inNew York State,affirmative action,andseparation of church and state.In 2013, he was the lead named amicus in briefs before the Supreme Court involving affirmative action (Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action) and prayer delivered at public meetings (Town of Greece v. Galloway). The U.S. Supreme Court has cited Finkelman six times, including in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's majority opinion inTimbs v. Indiana(2019).

In April 2007, Finkelman appeared at Harvard Law School for a retrial of theDred Scott v. Sandfordcase.He was an expert witness for Sandford.AttorneyKenneth Starrwas another expert witness before the mock court of federal justices, led byU.S. Supreme CourtJusticeStephen Breyer.

Finkelman has also appeared in several historical films, includingKen Burns'sdocumentary on Thomas Jefferson(for which he was invited to the Clinton White House), and a documentary about the Barry Bonds' home run ball,Up for Grabs.Television and radio programs which have used him as an analyst have been broadcast onNPR,PBS,CNN,andESPN.Finkelman has served on numerous editorial and advisory boards, as well as delivered more than 150 papers and lectures in the United States, and in Austria, Canada, China, Colombia (SA), France, Germany, Ireland (Eire), Israel, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Publications

Finkelman has published more than 50 books and hundreds of scholarly articles. His interests includeslavery,race,civil rights,civil liberties,theUnited States Constitutionandconstitutional law,and baseball. Finkelman was listed as one of the ten most-cited legal historians inBrian Leiter's survey of most-cited law professors by specialty from 2000 to 2014.

Finkelman has also written numerous entries for encyclopedias and reference works. More than eighty short book reviews he has written have appeared in a wide variety of scholarly journals. His essays, op-eds and blogs have been published inThe New York Times,The Washington Post,The Atlantic,Washington Monthly,Los Angeles Review of Books,Jewish Review of Books,USA Today,The Baltimore Sun,theHuffington Post,theRoot,and other non-scholarly avenues. Among them have been aboutThomas Jefferson's relationship with slaveryand several concerning the American Civil War in the Disunion section ofThe New York Times'The Opinionator blog.While at theSUNY Binghamton,Finkelman edited the 18-volumeArticles on American Slavery,collecting nearly 400 important articles on slavery in the United States, which Garland Publishing published in 1989. Finkelman also editedThe Political Lincoln: An Encyclopedia(2009), published byCQ Press,and is an advisor to theAbraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.He is the editor-in-chief of the book series,Routledge Historical Americans,co-editor-in-chief ofStudies in Southern Legal Historyat the University of Georgia Press, and co-editor ofLaw Politics and Society in the Midwestat Ohio University Press.

His 2018 bookSupreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Courts,which documents the racist personal and legal practices of pre-Civil WarSupreme CourtChief JusticesJohn MarshallandRoger B. Taneyand Associate JusticeJoseph Story,provided evidentiary impetus for the change of name ofUIC John Marshall Law Schoolto theUniversity of Illinois Chicago School of Law,and the change of the name Cleveland-Marshall Law School toCleveland State University College of Law.

Selected works

• A Brief Narrative of the Cast and Tryal ofJohn Peter Zenger.Bedford/St. Martin's, 2010.
• A History of Michigan Law.Co-edited with Martin J. Hershock. Ohio University Press, 2006.
• A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of the United States.WithMelvin I. Urofsky.2 vols. 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2011.
• American Legal History: Cases and Materials.WithKermit L. Halland James W. Ely, Jr. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 2017.
• An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity.University of North Carolina Press, 1981. Reprint: Lawbook Exchange, 2001.
• Baseball and the American Legal Mind.With Spencer Waller and Neil Cohen. Garland, 1995.
• Congress and the Crisis of the 1850s.Co-edited with Donald R. Kennon. Ohio University Press, 2012.
• Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism: From theMissouri Compromiseto the Age ofJackson.Co-edited with Donald R. Kennon. Ohio University Press, 2008.
• Constitutional Law in Context.With Michael Kent Curtis, J. Wilson Parker and Davison M. Douglas. 2 vols. 3rd ed., Carolina Academic Press, 2011.
• Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South.Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.
• Documents of American Constitutional and Legal History(2 vols). Co-edited with Melvin Urofsky. 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Dred Scott v. Sandford:A Brief History with Documents.Bedford/St. Martin's, 1997.
• The Dred Scott Case: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Race and Law.Co-edited with David Thomas Konig and Christopher Alan Bracey. Ohio University Press, 2010.
• Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age ofFrederick Douglass.Editor-in-Chief. 3 vols. Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-First Century.Editor-in-Chief. 5 vols. Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance.Co-edited with Cary Wintz. 2 vols. Routledge, 2005.
• Encyclopedia of United States Indian Policy and Law.Co-edited with Tim Alan Garrison. 2 vols. CQ Press, 2009.
• His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses toJohn Brownand theHarpers Ferry Raid.Editor. University Press of Virginia, 1995.
• Impeachable Offenses: A Documentary History from 1787 to the Present.Co-authored with Emily Van Tassel. Congressional Quarterly Press, 1998.
• In the Shadow of Freedom: The Politics of Slavery in the National Capital.Co-edited with Donald R. Kennon. Ohio University Press, 2011.
• Justice and Legal Change on the Shores of Lake Erie: A History of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.Co-edited with Roberta Sue Alexander. Ohio University Press, 2012.
• The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference.With Margaret Wagner andGary W. Gallagher.Simon and Schuster, 2002.
• Lincoln, Congress, and Emancipation.Co-edited with Donald R. Kennon. Ohio University Press, 2016
• Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery.Co-edited with Joseph C. Miller. 2 vols. Macmillan, 1998.
• Millard Fillmore.Times Books, 2011.
• The PoliticalLincoln:An Encyclopedia.Co-edited with Martin J. Hershock. CQ Press, 2009.
• Terrorism, Government, and Law: National Authority and Local Autonomy in the War on Terror.Co-edited with Susan N. Herman. Praeger Security International, 2008.
• Race and the Constitution: From the Philadelphia Convention to the Age of Segregation.American Historical Association, 2010.
• Religion and American Law: An Encyclopedia.Editor. Garland, 2000.
• Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson.3rd ed., M.E. Sharpe, 2014.
• Slavery and the Law.Editor. Madison House, 1997.
• Slavery in the Courtroom.Library of Congress, 1985. Recipient of the 1986 Joseph L. Andrews Award from the American Association of Law Libraries. Reprint: Lawbook Exchange, 1996.
• Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation's Highest Court.Harvard University Press, 2018.Review
• Terrible Swift Sword: The Legacy of John Brown.Co-edited with Peggy A. Russo. Ohio University Press, 2005.
• Toward a Usable Past: Liberty Under State Constitutions.Co-editor with Stephen Gottlieb. University of Georgia Press, 1991.

External links

• Finkelman's publications and public lectures
• Finkelman's articles in full text
• AppearancesonC-SPAN