Professor of Law
B.A., Yale; J.D., Harvard

Assistant: Nicky McMillan

Phone: 9461

Biography

After graduating from law school, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, Professor Rubin clerked for Judge Collins J. Seitz of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Justice David H. Souter of the United States Supreme Court. Professor Rubin spent several years before joining the faculty as a practicing lawyer specializing in constitutional litigation. He served as counsel in the U.S. Supreme Court for, among others, Dr. Timothy Quill and two other doctors in Vacco v. Quill, a challenge to the constitutionality of New York's ban on physician assisted suicide, and Planned Parenthood in Rust v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court challenge to the abortion "gag rule" imposed in the 1980s upon family planning clinics that received federal funding. He also represented a group of pregnant women who sought prenatal care at the Medical University of South Carolina but who instead were arrested after their medical records indicating positive drug tests were turned over to police without their consent; the women's constitutional claims were recently vindicated by the Supreme Court in Ferguson v. City of Charleston. Professor Rubin's recent writing includes "Reconnecting Doctrine and Purpose: A Comprehensive Approach to Strict Scrutiny After Adarand and Shaw," published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and "Equal Rights, Special Rights, and the Nature of Antidiscrimination Law," published in the Michigan Law Review. In November and December of 2000, Professor Rubin served as counsel to Vice President Gore before the U.S. Supreme Court in the two Florida election cases, Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board and Bush v. Gore. Professor Rubin is also the Founder of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.