Justin Driver is the Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law and Counselor to the Dean at Yale Law School. He teaches and writes in the area of constitutional law and is the author of The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind, which was selected as a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year and an Editors’ Choice of The New York Times Book Review. The Schoolhouse Gate also received the Steven S. Goldberg Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Education Law, and was a finalist for the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award and Phi Beta Kappa’s Ralph Waldo Emerson Book Award.
A recipient of the American Society for Legal History’s William Nelson Cromwell Article Prize, Driver has a distinguished publication record in the nation’s leading law reviews. He also has written extensively for general audiences, including pieces in Slate, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, and The New Republic, where he was a contributing editor. A member of the American Law Institute and of the American Constitution Society’s Academic Advisory Board, Driver is also an editor of the Supreme Court Review. In 2021, President Joe Biden appointed Driver to serve on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Previously, Driver was the Harry N. Wyatt Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. Driver is a graduate of Brown, Oxford (where he was a Marshall Scholar), Duke (where he received certification to teach public school), and Harvard Law School (where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review). After graduating from Harvard, Driver clerked for then-Judge Merrick Garland, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (Ret.), and Justice Stephen Breyer.
Chautauqua Institution’s Robert H. Jackson Lecture is named in honor of the former Chautauquan, Jamestown lawyer, New Dealer, Solicitor General, Attorney General, Supreme Court justice, and Nuremberg chief prosecutor. Every summer, the Jackson Lecture is a leading expert discussing the Supreme Court, the justices, signal decisions, and related legal developments.
Chautauqua’s previous Jackson Lecturers have been Geoffrey Stone (2005), Linda Greenhouse (2006), Seth Waxman (2007), Jeffrey Toobin (2008), Paul Clement (2009), Jeff Shesol (2010), Dahlia Lithwick (2011), Pamela Karlan (2012), Charles Fried (2013), Akhil Amar (2014), Laurence Tribe (2015), Tracey Meares (2016), Judge Jon O. Newman (2017), Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella of Canada’s Supreme Court (2018), Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. (2019), Ruth Marcus (2020), Melissa Murray (2021) and Reva Siegel (2022).
This event occurs on the grounds of Chautauqua Institution during Week Five of its 2023 Summer Season. To attend in person, a single event ticket or a gate pass from Chautauqua Institution is required to access this event. You can purchase a ticket here. For virtual attendance, you must be subscribed to the Chautauqua Assembly. You can register for or subscribe to the Assembly here.