Kurt T. Lash

Alumni Distinguished Professor of Law
Director, Program on Constitutional Theory, History and Law

One of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law, Professor Kurt T. Lash is honored as the newest recipient of the Alumni Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law, where he directs the Program in Constitutional Theory, History, and Law.

The author of The American First Amendment in the Twenty-First Century: Cases and Materials (5th edition, Foundation Press) (with William A. Van Alstyne), Professor Lash has written numerous books and articles on constitutional law and American legal history, including The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment (Oxford University Press) and American Privileges and Immunities: Federalism, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Rights of American Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).  His articles appear in some of the top law reviews in the United States, including the Stanford Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review and Texas Law Review, and his scholarship has been cited by both state and federal appellate courts, including the United States Supreme Court. 

In 2011, Professor Lash’s work on the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment received the University of Illinois College of Law’s Caroll P. Hurd Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship.

During the fall semester 2012, Professor Lash was visiting professor of law at Northwestern University School of Law.