Marc O. DeGirolami

Cary Fields Professor of LawCo-Director, Center for Law and Religion
A.B., Duke UniversityM.A., Harvard UniversityJ.D., Boston University School of LawLL.M., J.S.D.,Columbia University School of Law

Marc O. DeGirolami is the Cary Fields Professor of Law and the Co-Director of the Center for Law and Religion at St. John's Law School. His publications include The Tragedy of Religious Freedom (Harvard University Press) and past and future articles in the Yale Law Journal, Notre Dame Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, Legal Theory, and the Boston College Law Review, among others. He has written in the popular press for The New York Times, The New Republic, First Things, Commonweal, and The Library of Law and Liberty. 

He has been a Visiting Professor and Visiting Fellow at Princeton University's Department of Politics, as well as a Visiting Professor at Notre Dame Law School and Catholic University, Columbus School of Law. Before St. John's, he was a fellow at Columbia Law School. His professional experience includes service as an Assistant District Attorney in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  

At St. John's, he has taught Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Criminal Law, Jurisprudence, Law and Religion, Professional Responsibility, and Torts.

Books

We Mean What We Do: The New Constitutional Traditionalism (in submission).

The Tragedy of Religious Freedom (Harvard University Press 2013).

Book Chapters

The Two Separationsin The Cambridge Companion to the First Amendment and Religious Liberty (Michael Breidenbach & Owen Anderson, eds.), Cambridge University Press (2020).

On the Uses of anti-Christian Identity Politicsin Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground (William Eskridge & Robin Fretwell Wilson, eds.), Cambridge University Press (2018).    

The Bloating of the Constitution: Equality and the U.S. Establishment Clause, in The Social Equality of Religion or Belief (Alan Carling, ed.), Palgrave Macmillan (2016).

The Punishment Jurist, in Foundational Texts in Modern Criminal Law (Markus Dubber, ed.), Oxford University Press (2014).

The Choice of Evils and the Collisions of Theory, in  Retributivism: Essays on Theory and Policy (Mark D. White, ed.), Oxford University Press (2011).

Articles & Essays

Establishment as Tradition, --- Yale L.J. Forum --- (forthcoming).

The Death, and New Life, of Law and Religion, --- Oxford J.L. & Religion --- (forthcoming).

Public-Private Drift and the Shattering Polity, 68 American J. Jurisprudence --- (forthcoming 2023).

Mysterizing Religion, 98 Notre Dame L. Rev. Reflection --- (forthcoming 2023).

The New Disestablishments, 33 George Mason U. Civ. Rights J. 31 (2022).

Establishment’s Political Priority to Free Exercise, 97 Notre Dame L. Rev. 715 (2022).

Reconstructing Malice in the Law of Punitive Damages, 14 J. Tort Law 193 (2021).

The End of the Affair, 66 American J. Jurisprudence 409 (2021).

First Amendment Traditionalism, 97 Washington University L. Rev. 1653 (2020).

The Traditions of American Constitutional Law, 95 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1123 (2020).

The Sickness Unto Death of the First Amendment, 42 Harvard J. Law & Pub. Pol’y 751 (2019).

Religious Accommodation, Religious Tradition, and Political Polarization, 20 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 1127 (2017).

Substantial Burdens Imply Central Beliefs, 2016 Illinois L. Rev. Online 19.

Virtue, Freedom, and the First Amendment, 91 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1465 (2016).

Free Exercise by Moonlight, 53 San Diego L. Rev. 105 (2016).

Constitutional Contraction: Religion and the Roberts Court, 26 Stanford L. & Policy Rev. 385 (2015).

Judge Posner, Judge Wilkinson, and Judicial Critique of Constitutional Theory (with Kevin C. Walsh), 90 Notre Dame L. Rev. 633 (2015).

Against Theories of Punishment: The Thought of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen,  9 Ohio St. J. Criminal L. 699 (2012) (selected for inclusion in volume on punishment and culpability). 

The Handmaid of Politics, 26 J.L. & Religion 101 (2010-2011).

The Vanity of Dogmatizing, 27 Constitutional Commentary 201 (2010).

The Excitement of Interdictory Ideas, 8 Ohio St. J. Criminal L. 155 (2010).

No Tears for Creon, 15 Legal Theory 245 (2009).

Culpability in Creating the Choice of Evils, 60 Alabama L. Rev. 597 (2009).

The Problem of Religious Learning, 49 Boston College L. Rev. 1213 (2008).

Faith in the Rule of Law, 82 St. John's L. Rev. 573 (2008).

Recoiling From Religion, 43 San Diego L. Rev. 619 (2006).

The New Religious Prisons and Their Retributivist Commitments, 59 Arkansas L. Rev. 1 (2006).

Congressional Threats of Removal Against Federal Judges, 10 Texas J. on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights 111 (2005).