Thomas M. Keck
Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Syracuse University
Tom Keck is the Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Professor Keck is the author of The Most Activist Supreme Court in History: The Road to Modern Judicial Conservatism, which examined the remarkable rise of conservative judicial activism in the late twentieth century (and the surprising resilience of liberal judicial activism during this period as well). Writing in the American Political Science Review, Keck has also offered an original account of the competing pulls of partisan loyalty and legal obligation on the justices, an account which received the Houghton Mifflin Award for the best journal article on law and courts written by a political scientist in 2007. Most recently, writing in the Law and Society Review, Keck documented the sweeping policy changes that have resulted from contemporary litigation on behalf of LGBT rights. Combining this research with similar examinations of abortion, affirmative action, and gun rights, he is currently writing a book on the courts and the culture wars during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama eras. Professor Keck received his B.A. in Politics from Oberlin College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Rutgers University.