Patheos Featured Writers

MARCI A. HAMILTON is one of the United States' leading scholars and public intellectuals on religion and the law.  She holds the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.  She is the author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge University Press 2008) and God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law (Cambridge University Press 2005, 2007).  She is also a columnist on constitutional issues forwww.findlaw.com, where her column appears every other Thursday.  She has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, New York University School of Law, Emory University School of Law, and the Princeton Theological Seminary.

Professor Hamilton is frequently asked to advise Congress and state legislatures on the constitutionality of pending legislation and to consult in cases involving important constitutional issues.  She was lead counsel for the City of Boerne, Texas, in Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997), before the Supreme Court in its seminal federalism and church/state case holding the Religious Freedom Restoration Act unconstitutional.  She has served as constitutional law counsel in many important clergy sex abuse and religious land use cases, and has testified before numerous state legislatures regarding elimination of the statutes of limitations for childhood sex abuse.

Professor Hamilton clerked for Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor of the United States Supreme Court and Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She received her J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. She also received her M.A. in Philosophy and M.A., high honors, in English from Pennsylvania State University, and her B.A., summa cum laude, from Vanderbilt University.  She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif.

Professor Hamilton has published many op-eds in leading publications and has appeared frequently in the media, including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Good Morning America, the Today Show, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Lou Dobbs Show, O'Reilly Factor, Hannity &  Colmes; CNN Headline News; Fox News; The Anderson Cooper Show; NPR; C-Span2 BookTV, washingtonpost.com, among many others.