Justice Kavanaugh to join faculty at George Mason’s Scalia Law School
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh will join George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School as a distinguished visiting professor, the university confirmed Saturday.
Kavanaugh will co-teach a two-credit summer course in England from July through August. The class, titled “Creation of the Constitution,” focuses on “the origins and creation of the U.S. Constitution just outside of London in Runnymede, England, the location of the sealing of the Magna Carta,” according to the Scalia Law School.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was confirmed in April 2017 to take over the late Scalia’s Supreme Court seat, will also co-teach a summer class in Padua, Italy, “about the historical roots and the modern application of the separation of powers in the national security context.”
In a statement, the law school said: “It is a rare opportunity for students to learn from a U.S. Supreme Court Justice and we believe that contributes to making our law program uniquely valuable for our students.”
The news of Kavanaugh’s role at George Mason — first reported by Fourth Estate, the university’s student-run news outlet — comes five months after Harvard Law School announced that he would not return to campus in Spring 2019 to teach his previously scheduled course, “The Supreme Court Since 2005.”
“Today, Judge Kavanaugh indicated that he can no longer commit to teaching his course in January Term 2019, so the course will not be offered,” Catherine Claypoole, associate dean and dean for academic and faculty affairs, wrote in an email to students in October, according to a report by The Harvard Crimson.
Hundreds of Harvard Law alumni had signed a letter urging the university to remove Kavanaugh as a lecturer at the school, though it had not been submitted to administrators by the time of Claypoole’s email, The Washington Post reported. That backlash followed allegations of decades-old sexual assault leveled against Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2018.
Kavanaugh denied the accusations, telling the panel’s Democratic lawmakers at the time: “I love teaching law, but thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed, I may never be able to teach again.”
George Mason recently celebrated the Senate’s confirmation of Neomi Rao, the former administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, to replace Kavanaugh on theU.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Rao was previously an associate professor at the Scalia Law School and founded its Center for the Study of the Administrative State in 2015, according to the university.
Rao’s ascension to the nation’s second highest court was also the subject of controversy after Republicans raised concerns over her prior writings on sexual assault and abortion.