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Paul Finkelman currently holds the Fulbright Chair in Human Rights and Social Justice at the University of Ottawa School of Law, in Ottawa, Canada. He is also the John E. Murray Visiting Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He received his B.A. in American Studies from Syracuse University in 1971 and his Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago in 1976.  He was later a Fellow in Law and Humanities at Harvard Law School. For the calendar year 2016 he held the Ariel F. Sallows Chair in Human Rights Law at the University of Saskatchewan. In 2012 he held the John Hope Franklin Chair in American Legal History at Duke Law SchoolHe has also held endowed chairs at LSU Law School, the University of Tulsa College of Law, and the University of Miami history department. From 2006 to 2014 he was the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor at Albany Law School.   He is the author of more than 200 scholarly articles and the author or editor of more than fifty books. His next book, Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court, will be published by Harvard University Press in 2018. 

He is a specialist in American legal history, U. S. Constitutional law, race and the law, the law of American slavery, the First Amendment, religious liberty, the history of the Second Amendment, African American history, the American Civil War, and legal issues surrounding American sports. His work has been cited in four decisions by the United States Supreme Court, numerous other courts, and in many appellate briefs. He has lectured on slavery, human trafficking, and human rights issues at the United Nations, throughout the United States, and in more than a dozen other countries. In 2014, he was ranked as the fifth most cited legal historian in American legal scholarship in Brian Leiter’s “Top Ten Law Faculty Scholarly Impact, 2009-2013.” He was an expert witness in the famous Alabama Ten Commandments Monument Case (Glassroth v. Moore) and in the law suit over the ownership of Barry Bonds’ 73rd home run ball (Popov v. Hayashi). 

Sponsored by: Dean of the College Office, Africana Studies, Political Science, American Studies, History's Lefler Fund, and the Center for Global and Regional Studies