B.A., Oberlin College, 1992
M.A., Rutgers University, 1996
Ph.D., Rutgers University, 1999

Courses: 

American National Government and Politics (PSC 121)
Constitutional Law
The Supreme Court in American Politics
Law and Society
American Constitutional Development
Theories of American Politics

Link to syllabi: http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/tmkeck/syllabi.html

Recent Publications:

The Most Activist Supreme Court in History: The Road to Modern Judicial Conservatism (The University of Chicago Press, 2004).

"David H. Souter: Liberal Constitutionalism and the Brennan Seat." In Earl Maltz, ed., Rehnquist Justice: Understanding the Court Dynamic (Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas, 2003):185-215.

“Activism and Restraint on the Rehnquist Court: Timing, Sequence, and Conjuncture in Constitutional Development.” Polity 35:1 (Fall 2002):121-52.

Web Page: http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/tmkeck/

Research Interests:

Professor Keck’s research focuses on the Supreme Court, American constitutional development, modern conservatism, and the use of legal strategies by movements for social change.

Current Research Projects:

Professor Keck is currently working on a book entitled Race and Rights in a Conservative Era: The Legal Assault on Affirmative Action. This book will examine the widely noted conservative litigation campaign against affirmative action. Led by the Center for Individual Rights (CIR), a Washington, D.C.-based conservative public interest litigation organization, opponents of affirmative action sought to persuade the Supreme Court to outlaw the race-conscious admissions policies used by scores of colleges and universities nationwide. Despite much going in its favor, this campaign ended in dramatic defeat when the high Court upheld the admissions policy at the University of Michigan Law School in the summer of 2003. This book will explain why.