Akhil Reed Amar

Akhil Reed Amar

Akhil Reed Amar was born on September 6th, 1958 and is currently 67 years old. Akhil Reed Amar was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Amar attended Yale University where he received a BA and JD degrees.

Akhil Reed Amar is an American legal scholar known for his expertise in U.S. constitutional law.

He was an undergraduate at Yale College before receiving his legal education at Yale Law School. Afterward, he clerked for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer and became a professor at Yale Law School at the age of 26. He interviewed for a clerkship with Justice John Paul Stevens but did not receive an offer. Akhil is one of the legal scholars most frequently cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.

He joined the Yale Law School faculty in 1985 as an assistant professor, then became an associate professor in 1988 and a full professor in 1990. From 1993 until 2008, he held the law school’s Southmayd Professorship of Law. Akhil was appointed as a Sterling Professor of Law in 2008.

His former students include four U.S. senators: Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Josh Hawley, and Chris Coons, as well as government officials Neal Katyal and Jake Sullivan. Justice Brett Kavanaugh was also a student.

Justices across the spectrum on the Supreme Court have cited Akhil’s work in over four dozen cases, the most among living non-emeritus scholars. He generally ranks among America’s five most-cited mid-career legal scholars in surveys of judicial and scholarly citations.

A Legal Affairs poll in 2008 placed him among the top 20 contemporary American legal thinkers. According to a 2021 study performed by Fred R. Shapiro, he is the 18th most-cited legal scholar.

In America’s Constitution: A Biography, one of our era’s most accomplished constitutional scholars, Akhil provides the first comprehensive account of one of the world’s great political texts.

We all know this much: the Constitution is neither perfect nor immutable. Akhil shows us how the story of this relatively compact document reflects the tale of America much more generally. Much of the Constitution, for example, was lifted from already existing American legal texts, including early state constitutions. It was as much a product of its environment as it was a product of its individual creators’ inspired genius.

Despite the flaws in the document, its role in guiding the republic has been nothing short of amazing. He skillfully places the document in the context of late-18th-century American politics and explains the reasons why America adopted an electoral college, whether anything is unamendable, why a president has to be at least 35, and why only candidates born under the American flag can become president.

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Akhil Reed Amar: F.A.Q