See below my professional Vita, summarizing employment, attorney licensure, education, legal editorial work, books, selected articles and other publications, and volunteer nonprofit work. Following the Vita is a short Personal Summary.
Feel free to contact me by email (bryanw@gmail.com). A more detailed Vita in PDF form is available upon request. Please see the Copyright and Permissions Note at the end of this page.
Employment
University of San Diego School of Law, Adjunct Professor of Constitutional Law (LLM program in U.S. Law for International Attorneys) (2024–25), Visiting Professor (2021) (JD program, teaching American Indian Law)
Thomas Jefferson School of Law (San Diego), Professor Emeritus (since 2018), Visiting Professor (2018–20, 2022, 2024), Professor (2008–18), Associate Professor (1999–2008, tenured 2002), Assistant Professor (1996–99) (teaching Constitutional Law, American Indian Law, Civil Procedure, Federal Courts & Jurisdiction, and other courses)
University of Nice (France) Faculty of Law (now part of Côte d’Azur University), Visiting Professor (2011) (teaching Comparative Constitutional Law) (joint summer program with Thomas Jefferson School of Law)
Chicago-Kent College of Law (Illinois Institute of Technology), Visiting Assistant Professor (1994–96) (teaching Legal Research & Writing, Criminal Procedure, and Immigration Law)
Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale) (Washington, D.C.), Associate (1992–94)
Law Clerk (1990–92) to the Honorable Michael F. Cavanagh, Justice (1983–2015), Chief Justice (1991–95), Michigan Supreme Court (Lansing) (Justice Cavanagh, b. 1940, is one of the most admired and long-serving judges in Michigan history.)
Law Clerk (1989–90) to the Honorable Frank M. Johnson Jr., U.S. Circuit Judge (1979–96), U.S. Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit (Montgomery, Alabama) (Judge Johnson, 1918–99, served as U.S. District Judge, 1955–79, playing a historic role working toward desegregation and racial justice in Alabama; the U.S. Courthouse in Montgomery was named for him in 1992 and he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995.)
Law Clerk (Summer 1988), Minnesota State Attorney General’s Office (Hubert H. Humphrey III, Attorney General) (St. Paul)
Law Clerk (Summer 1987), Warner, Norcross & Judd (Grand Rapids, Michigan)
Cited by U.S. Supreme Court
McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 763 n. 10, 829 n. 10, 830 n. 12, 841 (2010), and Timbs v. Indiana, 139 S. Ct. 682, 691 (2019) (see news release and article cited)
Attorney Licensure
Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States (2010 to present) (see U.S. Supreme Court Journal, 2009–10 Term, June 1, 2010, pp. 913, 914)
State Bar of Michigan (1990 to present)
District of Columbia Bar (1993–94)
Education
Stanford Law School, J.D. with Distinction (1989); Stanford Law Review (1987–89) (Senior Editor; received Board of Editors Award); Teaching Assistant, Stanford University Political Science Department (1988) (assembled and edited all course reading materials and led two sections of major lecture course on Civil Rights & Civil Liberties taught by Professor Jim Steyer); Hilmer Oehlmann Jr. Prize for Outstanding Legal Research and Writing (1987)
Stanford University, A.B. with Distinction and Departmental Honors (Political Science) (1986); Senior Honors Thesis, “The Contradictory Politics of Judicial Decisionmaking” (1986) (revised and published 1990 in Arizona Law Review as “Judicial Philosophies in Collision: Justice Blackmun, Garcia, and the Tenth Amendment”)
Oxford University (Magdalen College), Stanford-in-Oxford Summer Program on Anglo-American Law (Summer 1985) (credit applied to Stanford A.B.)
Books
Early Shakespeare Authorship Doubts (2019) (see 2017 preview lecture)
Native American Sovereignty on Trial: A Handbook With Cases, Laws, and Documents (2003) (textbook from leading academic publisher ABC-CLIO)
Legal Editorial Work
Faculty Editor, Thomas Jefferson School of Law Research Paper Series, Legal Scholarship Network, Social Science Research Network (SSRN) (2007–16) (Vols. 9–18) (managed and edited online postings of scholarly papers by more than two dozen faculty colleagues)
Stanford Law Review, Senior Editor (1988–89) (Vol. 41), Member (1987–89) (Vols. 40–41), received Board of Editors Award (1989)
Articles
“Nationalizing the Bill of Rights: Revisiting the Original Understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866–67,” 68 Ohio State Law Journal 1509 (2007) (SSRN), cited by U.S. Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 763 n. 10, 829 n. 10, 830 n. 12, 841 (2010) (opinion of the Court, concurring opinion, and numerous briefs on both sides), and in Timbs v. Indiana, 139 S. Ct. 682, 691 (2019) (concurring opinion in unanimous decision) (see news release)
“Federal Labor Law, Indian Sovereignty, and the Canons of Construction,” 86 Oregon Law Review 413 (2007) (SSRN), cited in Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law (leading treatise in the field), 2012 ed. § 2.03, p. 123 n. 2, and 2024 ed. (forthcoming) (influencing revisions of § 2.03, “Federal Laws of General Applicability,” a key part of Chapter 2, “Principles of Interpretation”)
“Indian Sovereignty, General Federal Laws, and the Canons of Construction: An Overview and Update,” 6 American Indian Law Journal 98 (2017) (available on Seattle University School of Law website and on SSRN), cited in Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law (leading treatise in the field), 2024 ed. (forthcoming)
Additional Articles (in reverse chronological order)
“The Speaker of the House and Presidential Succession: An Argument and Addendum,” TJSL Research Paper No. 3714362 (Oct. 18, 2020, rev. 2021) (SSRN) (shorter version originally published on Jurist, Oct. 16, 2020)
“The Oxfordian Era on the Supreme Court” (Aug. 30, 2016, rev. 2020) (on the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship website)
“Nationalizing the Bill of Rights: Scholarship and Commentary on the Fourteenth Amendment in 1867–1873,” 18 Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 153 (2009) (abstract on University of San Diego School of Law website) (full article on SSRN)
“How the Ninth Circuit Overruled a Century of Supreme Court Indian Jurisprudence — And Has So Far Gotten Away With It,” 2008 Michigan State Law Review 547 (2008) (SSRN)
“Fighting the Lone Wolf Mentality: Twenty-First Century Reflections on the Paradoxical State of American Indian Law,” 38 Tulsa Law Review 113 (2002) (SSRN)
“The Road to Twining: Reassessing the Disincorporation of the Bill of Rights,” 61 Ohio State Law Journal 1457 (2000) (SSRN)
“The Lost Compromise: Reassessing the Early Understanding in Court and Congress on Incorporation of the Bill of Rights in the Fourteenth Amendment,” 61 Ohio State Law Journal 1051 (2000) (SSRN)
“To Say ‘I Do’: Shahar v. Bowers, Same-Sex Marriage, and Public Employee Free Speech Rights,” 15 Georgia State University Law Review 381 (1998) (SSRN)
“The Right of Confrontation, Justice Scalia, and the Power and Limits of Textualism,” 48 Washington and Lee Law Review 1323 (1991) (SSRN)
“Judicial Philosophies in Collision: Justice Blackmun, Garcia, and the Tenth Amendment,” 32 Arizona Law Review 749 (1990) (revised undergraduate honors thesis) (SSRN)
“State Parochialism, the Right to Travel, and the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV,” 41 Stanford Law Review 1557 (1989) (SSRN)
Shorter Essays, Chapters, and Reviews (selected, in reverse chronological order)
“Whatever You Think of Garland, We Must Shield the Attorney General From Politics,” Jurist (Aug. 29, 2022)
“Defend Democracy Before It’s Too Late: A One-Page Bill Would Do It,” Jurist (June 26, 2021)
“D.C. Statehood Is Within Congress’s Power But Must Be Done Right,” Jurist (May 26, 2021)
“The Fake Filibuster: A Clear and Present Danger to Democracy,” Jurist (Feb. 8, 2021)
“Trump’s Final Days and Republican Complicity,” Jurist (Jan. 11, 2021)
“The People’s Right to Elect Senators,” Jurist (Dec. 10, 2020)
“Republicans, the Rule of Law, and the Fate of American Democracy,” Jurist (Nov. 29, 2020)
“The Snobbery Slander: The Most Outrageous and Ironic Attacks on Oxfordians and Other Shakespeare Authorship Doubters” (July 15, 2019, rev. 2021) (on the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship website)
“Reflections on Spelling and the Shakespeare Authorship Question: ‘What’s in (the Spelling of) a Name?’” (Aug. 9, 2018, rev. 2021) (on the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship website)
“Shapiro ‘On the Media’: Name-Calling and Bullying Students and Doubters,” Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter (Summer 2018) (vol. 54, no. 3, p. 25) (SSRN) (and see my updated essay on this blog)
“The Electoral College: A Bipartisan Disaster For Democracy,” San Diego Union-Tribune (Jan. 15, 2017, p. B11) (online Jan. 13, 2017)
“Hillary Clinton’s Electoral College Defeat: It Almost Happened to George W. Bush in 2004,” TJSL Research Paper No. 2883806 (Dec. 13, 2016) (SSRN)
“Remembering Rollett and Debunking Shapiro (Again)” (July 13, 2016, rev. 2021) (on the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship website)
“An Inside Account of a Very Canadian Revolution,” reviewing Barry L. Strayer, Canada’s Constitutional Revolution (University of Alberta Press, 2013), H-Net Reviews in the Humanities & Social Sciences (2014)
“A Personal Perspective on Marriage, Time, Space, Uncertainty, and the Law,” 2011 Michigan State Law Review 229 (2011) (SSRN)
“On Birthright Citizenship, We Should Honor the Constitution,” Daily Journal (Los Angeles and San Francisco) (2010) (SSRN)
“Swayne, Noah Haynes” (U.S. Supreme Court Justice), in The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (Yale University Press, Roger K. Newman ed. 2009) (p. 532)
“Amendments, Post-Civil War,” in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (Macmillan [Gale Cengage], David S. Tanenhaus et al. eds. 2008) (v. 1, p. 56)
“Incorporation Debate” (Bill of Rights and 14th Amendment), in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (Macmillan [Gale Cengage], David S. Tanenhaus et al. eds. 2008) (v. 2, p. 455)
“Miller, Samuel F.” (U.S. Supreme Court Justice), in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (Macmillan [Gale Cengage], David S. Tanenhaus et al. eds. 2008) (v. 3, p. 290)
“Shapiro v. Thompson,” in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (Macmillan [Gale Cengage], David S. Tanenhaus et al. eds. 2008) (v. 4, p. 395)
“State Action,” in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (Macmillan [Gale Cengage], David S. Tanenhaus et al. eds. 2008) (v. 4, p. 452)
“Travel,” in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (Macmillan [Gale Cengage], David S. Tanenhaus et al. eds. 2008) (v. 5, p. 66)
“A Reply to Professor Thomas,” 68 Ohio State Law Journal 1659 (2007) (SSRN), replying to George C. Thomas III, “The Riddle of the Fourteenth Amendment: A Response to Professor Wildenthal,” 68 Ohio State Law Journal 1627 (2007) (SSRN) (Professor Thomas responded to my 2007 article cited above, “Nationalizing the Bill of Rights: Revisiting the Original Understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866–67”)
“Book Review,” reviewing Ronald M. Labbé & Jonathan Lurie, The Slaughterhouse Cases: Regulation, Reconstruction, and the Fourteenth Amendment (University Press of Kansas, 2003), 91 Journal of American History 1030 (2004)
“Book Review,” reviewing Brian Edward Brown, Religion, Law, and the Land: Native Americans and the Judicial Interpretation of Sacred Land (Greenwood, 1999), 16 Journal of Law and Religion 743 (2001) (SSRN)
“Civil War Without End: The Sociology and Synergy of Law and History,” reviewing Pamela Brandwein, Reconstructing Reconstruction: The Supreme Court and the Production of Historical Truth (Duke University Press, 1999), 2001 University of Illinois Law Review 629 (2001) (SSRN) (originally published on H-Net Reviews in the Humanities & Social Sciences, 2000)
“How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Slaughter-House Cases: An Essay in Constitutional-Historical Revisionism,” 23 Thomas Jefferson Law Review 241 (2001) (SSRN)
“Native American Religious Rights” (with Patrick M. O’Neil), in Religion and American Law: An Encyclopedia 330 (Garland, Paul Finkelman ed. 2000) (p. 330)
“Law Professor Queries: Should THLA = GLB + T?,” Tom Homann Law Association Newsletter (April 1999) (p. 3) (successfully advocating inclusion of transgender people and rights in mission of THLA, San Diego’s LGBT Bar Association) (SSRN)
Volunteer Nonprofit Work
Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship (nonprofit educational society devoted to English literature, history, and the Shakespeare authorship question), First Vice-President (2018–20), Trustee (2016–20) (member since 2012)
Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship, Website Content Editor (2020–21)
Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship, “Twenty Poems of Edward de Vere Echo in the Works of Shakespeare” (2018) (co-edited, co-researched, and co-drafted major new edition of early Elizabethan poetry) (on the SOF website)
Editorial Board, The Oxfordian, 2017–21 (Vols. 19–23) (peer-reviewed scholarly journal on English literature, history, and the Shakespeare authorship question, published since 1998 by the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship)
Personal Summary
I have lived in San Diego since 1996, now residing in the Point Loma area with my husband Ashish Agrawal (a doctor specializing in pulmonary and critical care medicine) and my mother-in-law Pushpa.
I’ve spent more than half my life in California by now, but was born in Houston, Texas, in 1964 (also lived when very young in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Bryan, Texas), and grew up mainly in the Lansing area of Michigan (1969–82), attending public schools for grades K-12 and graduating from Okemos High School. I still have lots of family in mid-Michigan and in Houston, Austin, Dallas, Alpine, and other parts of Texas, as well as several other states.
I lived for eight months (Dec. 1972 to Aug. 1973) and attended public school in München (Munich), Germany, learning quite a bit of German which I’ve mostly forgotten (but can still pronounce like a parrot). I can read and speak some French at a very rudimentary level. Plans to learn Hindi (my husband’s mother tongue) have never quite materialized but I’ve picked up a few words (same for Spanish). One of my great educational regrets is that I never studied Latin in school: perhaps a good retirement project!
I attended Stanford University and Law School (1982–89), then lived and worked in Montgomery, Alabama (1989–90), the Lansing area of Michigan (1990–92), Washington, D.C., and Bethesda, Maryland (1992–94), and Chicago and Evanston, Illinois (1994–96).
I’m an avid reader and passionate fan of good movies and TV (my interests include history, science, a wide range of fiction and poetry, and science-fiction).
I played the cello from age 7 to 18, including in the Okemos High School Symphony Orchestra (which is still going strong; I enjoyed this concert available on YouTube and this YT channel has several nice performances). I still have my cello from those days but have never found time to get back to it. I love “classical” music (baroque to 20th century), especially symphonic, chamber, cello, and piano works.
Not surprisingly, given my fascination with Shakespeare, I love live theatre too; my husband and his mother and I try to see as much as we can.
Copyright and Permissions Note
All contents of this blog (everything on the https://profbhw.org website, except for public-domain images or text, the WordPress trademark logo, or fair-use or permitted quotations of text copyrighted by others) are copyright 2023–24 by Bryan H. Wildenthal (the author), all rights reserved.
With regard to print or electronic copies not posted on the internet, the author hereby grants permission, to the extent of the author’s copyright, to copy and distribute any and all text or images on this blog, in whole or in part, for any nonprofit uses (educational, personal, governmental, or political), subject to crediting the author and citing the relevant internet address of this blog or the relevant page within it.
With regard to internet postings, the author requests that you link to the relevant internet address of this blog or the relevant page within it, rather than copying any material for re-posting on the internet, and the author does not hereby grant permission for such copying or re-posting (but is glad to consider requests on an individual basis; please email bryanw@gmail.com).
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The Skeptical Professor 