The Steven M. Polan Fellowship in Constitutional Law and History

About the Fellows

• Kate Andrias

  Kate Andrias is the Patricia D. and R. Paul Yetter Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where she codirects the Columbia Law School Center for Constitutional Governance and the Columbia Labor Lab. Her project will develop a playbook for how “We the People” — citizens, civil society, elected officials, and other members of the political community — can engage in the practice of democratic constitutionalism and advance constitutional change beyond the courts.

• Olatunde Johnson

  Olatunde Johnson is the Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’59 Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. As a Polan Fellow, she will work on a book and a series of articles on the 14th Amendment’s essential role in advancing equal citizenship in a multiracial democracy, mapping a set of doctrinal, legislative, and advocacy strategies to counter the ongoing assault on this constitutional provision. Over the course of her fellowship year, Johnson will convene with civil society organizations to help the field develop new 14th Amendment theories to advance equal citizenship and remedy structural racism and to safeguard Congress’s ability to legislate to advance economic and social equality.

• William Novak

  William Novak is the Charles F. and Edith J. Clyne Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. He will engage in a project of research, writing, publication, and public outreach, exploring conceptions of democracy from the founding era — from the very beginnings of the American revolutionary and constitution-making periods to the First Congress — and what this democratic origin story means for us today.

• Alice O’Brien

  Alice O’Brien is the general counsel for the National Education Association (NEA), the country’s largest labor union. She will use her fellowship to research the history of the understanding of state and federal constitutional rights to education during the second founding period. Her project will make use of the NEA’s archives, which contain papers dating back to before the Civil War, and bring that material to the attention of scholars, advocates, and the public.

• Julie C. Suk

  Julie C. Suk is the Hon. Deborah A. Batts Distinguished Research Scholar and professor of law at Fordham School of Law. Her project will take on the fact that the U.S. Constitution is the hardest constitution to amend in the world. Julie’s project will review episodes of constitutional change from our history and synthesize their lessons for us today, suggesting peaceful, democratic paths out of this constitutional cage.