Nagel, Robert F. 1947-

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NAGEL, Robert F. 1947-
(Robert Forder Nagel)

PERSONAL:

Born January 17, 1947, in Dover, DE; married, 1970; children: four. Education: Swarthmore College, B.A. (high honors), 1968; Yale Law School, J.D., 1972.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University of Colorado School of Law, 430 Wolf Law Bldg., 401 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0401. E-mail—Robert.Nagel@colorado.edu.

CAREER:

Educator, lawyer, and writer. Cornell Law School, Ithaca, NY, visiting associate professor, 1980-81; University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor, visiting professor, 1984; Marshall-Wythe School of Law, Williamsburg, VA, distinguished visiting professor, 1989; University of Colorado School of Law, Boulder, began as associate professor, became Rothgerber Professor of Constitutional Law; former director of the Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law, beginning 1975; former deputy attorney general in Pennsylvania.

MEMBER:

Bar of Colorado, Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

American Academy of Arts and Sciences fellow.

WRITINGS:

Constitutional Cultures: the Mentality and Consequences of Judicial Review, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1989.

Judicial Power and American Character: Censoring Ourselves in an Anxious Age, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1994.

(Editor) Intellect and Craft: The Contributions of Justice Hans Linde to American Constitutionalism, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1995.

The Implosion of American Federalism, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Contributor to books, including Life Tenure, edited by Carrington and Crampton, c. 2005; Protecting Human Rights in Australia, edited by Goldsworthy, 2006; and Alexander Bickel and Contemporary Constitutional Theory, edited by K. Ward, 2006. Contributor of more than fifty law review articles for professional journals; contributor to periodicals, including the New Republic, Wall Street Journal, First Things, and Washington Monthly.

SIDELIGHTS:

Robert F. Nagel is an expert on constitutional law and theory with an interest in areas such as free speech, hate codes, and federalism. He is also the author or editor of several books about constitutional law. In Judicial Power and American Character: Censoring Ourselves in an Anxious Age, Nagel examines modern constitutional law in relation to the character of American culture and the judicial side of the American culture wars. "His theme is the moral disintegration of American society and how the federal courts are encouraging it," wrote Commonweal contributor Daniel J. Morrissey, who also added: "Nagel presents an erudite argument and his thesis has all the righteousness of another lawyer/social philosopher of the Reformation era, John Calvin." Writing in First Things, Phillip E. Johnson commented: "It is not so much about the law the Court makes as the rhetoric the Justices employ, and about the role of the Court itself as a forum for enacting a kind of national drama about the anxieties of the American people." Johnson went on to write: "Robert Nagel is one of the more original scholars in the field of constitutional law, and his work is helping to take legal thinking in a direction I applaud." John Anthony Maltese noted in the American Political Science Review that he did not always agree with Nagel's analysis, "but there is much in his thought-provoking and well-written new book that is on the mark."

In The Implosion of American Federalism, Nagel argues that the centralization of American government has led many Americans to doubt the solidity of the United States and its ability to maintain federalism. The author analyzes recent Supreme Court cases concerning states' rights and concludes that the federal judiciary is not advancing a revival of federalism, which not only requires an appreciation and acceptance of political conflict but also an inherent respect for debate over constitutional meaning. Steven Puro, writing in the Library Journal noted that the author has a "controversial view of American federalism" but added that he makes a "thoughtful argument."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, September, 1995, John Anthony Maltese, review of Judicial Power and American Character: Censoring Ourselves in an Anxious Age, p. 766.

Commonweal, July 14, 1995. Daniel J. Morrissey, review of Judicial Power and American Character, p. 24.

Constitutional Commentary, summer, 1995, Mark A. Graber, review of Judicial Power and American Character, pp. 305-313.

First Things, May, 1995, Phillip E. Johnson, review of Judicial Power and American Character, pp. 62-64.

Law and Social Inquiry, spring, 2002, review of The Implosion of American Federalism, p. 443.

Library Journal, November 15, 2001, Steven Puro, review of The Implosion of American Federalism, p. 84.