For Immediate Release
May 2, 2011

Media Contact:

Kara Tershel, (202) 662-9037

Louis Michael Seidman

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Georgetown University Law Center Professor Louis Michael Seidman has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s most distinguished honorary societies.

"I am grateful to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for recognizing my work," said Seidman. "It's humbling to be honored alongside so many distinguished individuals, and I must admit it's pretty cool to be a member of any group that includes Bob Dylan!"

Seidman is one of 212 new members elected to the Academy this year and one of seven selected in the law section. Other new members include astronomer Paul Butler, cancer researcher Clara Bloomfield, recording artist Bob Dylan, jazz icon Dave Brubeck, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, actors Daniel Day Lewis and Sam Waterston, singer-songwriter Paul Simon, novelist Oscar Hijuelos and conceptual artist Jenny Holzer.

Established in 1870 by our nation’s founders, the Academy is a leading center for independent policy research. Its current membership of over 4,600 includes leaders from academia, business, public affairs, the humanities and the arts, as well as more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.

This year’s class will be inducted during a ceremony on October 1 at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Seidman is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown Law, where he teaches courses in constitutional and criminal law. He was the James Monroe Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and New York University School of Law.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1971, Seidman served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He was then a staff attorney with the D.C. Public Defender Service until joining the Georgetown Law faculty in 1976.

Seidman is the co-author of a constitutional law casebook and the author of several articles concerning criminal justice and constitutional law. His most recent books are Silence and Freedom (Stanford, 2007), Equal Protection of the Laws (Foundation, 2002) and Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review (Yale, 2001).

About Georgetown University Law Center 

Georgetown University Law Center is one of the world's premier law schools. It is pre-eminent in several areas, including constitutional, international, tax and clinical law, and the faculty is among the largest in the nation. Drawing on its Jesuit heritage, it has a strong tradition of public service and is dedicated to the principle that law is but a means, justice is the end. With this principle in mind, Georgetown Law has built an environment that cultivates an exchange of ideas and the pursuit of academic excellence. It brings together an extraordinarily varied group of teachers, scholars and practitioners, as well as an outstanding student body representing more than 60 countries.