Famed Constitutional Scholar Laurence H. Tribe to Speak at Wyant Series
September 14, 2011
Laurence H. Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard University, will discuss "What will the Constitution mean in 2037?" at the October 5th installment of the Wyant Lecture Series. The lecture will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the Janet M. Daley Library Lecture Hall.
The New York Times described Tribe as "arguably the most famous constitutional scholar and Supreme Court practitioner in the country." He has taught at Harvard Law School since 1968 and was voted the best professor by the graduating class of 2000. Tribe's title of "University Professor" is Harvard's highest academic honor, awarded to just a handful of professors at any given time and to fewer than 70 professors in all of the university's history.
Born in China to Russian Jewish parents, Tribe entered Harvard in 1958 at the age of 16. He graduated summa cum laude in mathematics (1962) and magna cum laude in law (1966), clerked for the California and U.S. Supreme Courts (1966-68), and received tenure at Harvard by the time he was 30 years old.
Tribe helped write the constitutions of South Africa, the Czech Republic, and the Marshall Islands, and is the recipient of 10 honorary degrees, most recently a degree honoris causa from the government of Mexico's National Institute of Criminal Science in March 2011, which had never before been awarded to an American. He has prevailed in three-fifths of the many appellate cases he has argued (including 35 in the U.S. Supreme Court), and was appointed by President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder in 2010 to serve as the first Senior Counselor for Access to Justice.
A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, he has written 115 books and articles, including his treatise, American Constitutional Law, which has been cited more than any other legal text since 1950.
The Wyant Lecture Series features speakers in the humanities, history and the arts. This endowed professorship was established by the late Louise Doherty Wyant '63 and her husband, Dr. James Wyant, in honor of Sister Anne Cyril Delaney, SND. Sister Anne Cyril was a professor of English at Emmanuel for 26 years. Through her teaching and her intellectual breadth, Sister Anne Cyril exemplified the values and relevance of the humanities and had a profound influence on generations of students.
