Dobbs, Democracy and Distrust
Melissa Murray, Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law at NYU School of Law
The 2023 Samuel J. Konefsky Memorial Lecture

Thursday, Nov. 9th from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Woody Tanger Auditorium, BC Library

The Konefsky Lecture is an annual event that honors Samuel J. Konefsky, an alum of BC who became a professor of constitutional law at BC from the 1940s to 1970. BC President Michelle J. Anderson will deliver opening remarks at this year’s event.

Melissa Murray is the Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, where she teaches constitutional law, family law, criminal law, and reproductive rights and justice. Murray’s writing has appeared in a range of legal and lay publications, including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Atlantic. She is a legal analyst for MSNBC, and is a co-host of Strict Scrutiny, a Crooked Media podcast about the Supreme Court and legal culture. Murray is a graduate of Yale Law School and the University of Virginia. Following law school, she served as a judicial clerk to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, then a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Stefan Underhill of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Mothers in Law
in Michigan Law Review (2023) (review)

Children of Men: The Roberts Court’s Jurisprudence of Masculinity
in Houston Law Review (2023)

The End of Roe v Wade and New Legal Frontiers on the Constitutional Right to Abortion
in Journal of the American Medical Association (2022) (with I. Glenn Cohen and Lawrence O. Gostin)

Abortion, Sterilization, and the Universe of Reproductive Rights
in William & Mary Law Review (2022)

Equal Protection in Dobbs and Beyond: How States Protect Life Inside and Outside of the Abortion Context
in Columbia Journal of Gender and Law 67 (2022) (with Reva B. Siegel and Serena Mayeri)

Race-ing Roe: Reproductive Justice, Racial Justice, and the Battle for Roe v. Wade
in Harvard Law Review (2021)

Law School in a Different Voice (2020)
in Women & Law, 2020

Inverting Animus: Masterpiece Cakeshop and the New Minorities
in Supreme Court Review (2019)

Whatever Happened to G.I. Jane?: Citizenship, Gender and Social Policy in the Postwar Era
in Michigan Journal of Gender & Law (2002)

CHAPTERS

Myth, Culture and Policy
in Democracy & Justice: Collected Writings 2019, at 96 (Alan J. Beard, ed., Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, 2020) (with Ta-Nehisi Coates)

SHORT ARTICLES

Human Rights Hero: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor
in Human Rights Magazine (2023)

Supreme Court Term Limits Would Create Their Own Problems
in New York Times (March 19, 2016) (Room for Debate with Jamal Greene)

Real-Life Effects of Court Rulings Should Matter as Well as the Law
in New York Times (March 18, 2016) (Room for Debate with Akhil Reed Amar and Ilya Shapiro)

The Strange History of Marriage as Court-ordered Punishment
in MSNBC (August 12, 2015)

The New Marriage Inequality
in MSNBC (July 1, 2015)