Richard Garnett

Contact Information

Richard W. Garnett
John Cardinal O’Hara, C.S.C. Associate Professor of Law
327 Law School
Notre Dame, IN 46656
574-631-6981
(f) 574-631-4197
rgarnett@nd.edu

Degrees

J.D. Yale University
B.A. Philosophy, Duke University

Honors/Awards

Commitment Award, ND Black Law Students Association, 2004
Charles Crutchfield Professorial Excellence Award, ND Black Law Students Association, 2001

Educational research interests

School choice, Catholic social thought, Education reform and policy

Select Publications

Briefly Noted, FIRST THINGS (March 2008) (reviewing PHILIP BESS, TILL WE HAVE
BUILT JERUSALEM: ARCHITECTURE, URBANISM, AND THE SACRED (2006)).

Briefly Noted, FIRST THINGS (Oct. 2007) (reviewing PATRICK M. GARRY, WRESTLING
WITH GOD: THE COURTS’ TORTUOUS TREATMENT OF RELIGION (2007)).

A Matter of Opinion: Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., LIBERTY (Nov./
Dec. 2007).

Religion and Group Rights: Are Churches (Just) Like the Boy Scouts?, 22 ST. JOHN’S J.
LEG. COMMENT. 515 (2007).

Pluralism, Dialogue, and Freedom: Professor Robert Rodes and the Church-State
Nexus, 22 J. L. & RELIGION 503 (2007).

Bio

Richard W. Garnett is Associate Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, where he teaches and writes about criminal law, capital punishment, religious freedom, and the freedom of speech. He received his B.A. in philosophy summa cum laude from Duke University in 1990, and his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1995. At Yale, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and as editor of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities. Professor Garnett also spent a year in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, working on juvenile justice and prison reform issues in San Francisco, California.
Before coming to Notre Dame, he served as law clerk to Chief Justice Rehnquist during October Term 1996 and to then-Chief Judge Richard S. Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He practiced law at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin, specializing in criminal defense, religious liberty, and education reform matters. He lives in South Bend, Indiana, with his wife, Professor Nicole Stelle Garnett, and three children, Margaret, Thomas, and Elizabeth.