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On Thursday, February 27, the 45th year of the J. Byron McCormick Lecture on Law and Public Affairs will feature Columbia University Professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jamal Greene.
Greene’s talk will focus on the role of ordinary Americans in transforming a Constitution written and amended under conditions of mass political exclusion into a charter for a modern, pluralistic democracy.
Greene is the Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches courses in constitutional law, the law of the political process and comparative constitutional law. He is the author of “How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart,” as well as numerous scholarly articles and book chapters on constitutional law and theory.
From January 2023 to December 2024, Greene served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel. He clerked for the Hon. Guido Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Hon. John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court.
The J. Byron McCormick Society of Law and Public Affairs was founded in 1978 to honor Dr. James Byron McCormick (1895–1970), former president of the University of Arizona and dean of the College of Law. The McCormick Society was created in his honor and to perpetuate his faith in the public discussions that are the lifeblood of a healthy democracy. Members of the McCormick Society foster dialogue about the critical issues of our time through an annual public lecture.
The 2025 McCormick Lecture marks the event’s 45th year. The first edition was during the 1979–80 academic year and featured Judge Joseph Sneed of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Over the years, the McCormick lecture has welcomed four Supreme Court Justices, a U.S. Attorney General, legislators, academics, journalists and others.
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