McGuinn Hall Room 226
Telephone: 617-552-1896
Email: shep.melnick@bc.edu
Courts; Public Policy
M 4:30-6 pm, W 2-3 pm
R. Shep Melnick is the Thomas P. O橬eill, Jr. Professor of American Politics at Boston College and co-chair of the Harvard Program on Constitutional Government.聽 He is the author of The Crucible of Desegregation: The Uncertain Search for Educational Equality聽(Univeristy of Chicago Press, 2023);聽The Transformation of Title IX:聽 Regulating Gender Equality in Education, (Brookings, 2018), Between the Lines:聽 Interpreting Welfare Rights (Brookings,1994), and Regulation and the Courts:聽 The Case of the Clean Air Act (Brookings, 1983), as well as many articles on courts, agencies, and public policy. He is currently completing a book on education and the civil rights state.聽 In 2012 he received the American Political Science Association Law and Courts Section 淟asting Contribution award.聽 He received his BA and PhD from Harvard, and taught at Harvard and Brandeis before moving to Boston College.聽 He has also been a Research Associate at Brookings, President of the New England Political Science Association, and an elected member of the NH House of Representatives.
The Crucible of Desgregation: The Uncertain Search for Educational Equality (University of Chicago Press, 2023)
The Transformation of Title IX:聽 Regulating Gender Equality in Education聽(Brookings, 2018)
Taking Stock: American Government in the Twentieth Century, co-edited with Morton Keller (Woodrow Wilson Center and Cambridge Press, 1999)
Between the Lines: Interpreting Welfare Rights (Brookings, 1994)
Regulation and the Courts: The Case of the Clean Air Act (Brookings, 1983)
淭itle IX and the Administrative State (with Tamara Rice Lave),聽AEI Report, Oct.,聽2024.
淪till Essential, Still Elusive: Brown v. Board of Education at 70,澛Education Next聽Fall, 2024.
淚nside the 楢dministrative State: The Enigmatic Office for Civil Rights,澛罢丑别听贵辞谤耻尘,聽vol. 22, July, 2024.
淲hose Educational Opportunity?澛Marquette Sports Law Journal听(2023)
淲est Virginia v. EPA聽on Climate Change and Administrative Power, in Morgan聽Marietta, ed.,聽SCOTUS 2022: Major Decisions and Developments of the聽Supreme Court听(2022)
淒esegregation, Then and Now, National Affairs, Winter, 2020
淎nalyzing the Department of Education final Title IX rules on sexual misconduct, Brookings Report, June 11, 2020
淭he Title IX Spotlight Shifts from the Campus to the Schoolhouse, 贰诲耻肠补迟颈辞苍听狈别虫迟, May 27, 2020
淭he Mismeasure of 楨nforcement,櫇 Education Next Blog, February, 2020
淭he Department of Education Proposed Sexual Harassment Rules:聽 Looking Beyond the Rhetoric, Brookings Brief, January, 2019
淭he Strange Evolution of Title IX, National Affairs, Summer, 2018
淩ethinking Federal Regulation of Sexual Harassment:聽 The Need for Debate, not Demagoguery in the Age of Trump, Education Next, Winter, 2018
淪exual Harassment and the Evolving Civil Rights State, in Lynda Dodd, ed., The聽Rights Revolution Revisited:聽 Institutional Perspectives on the Private聽Enforcement of Civil Rights in the U.S. (Cambridge, 2018)
淪calia Dilemmas as a Conservative Jurist, in Paul E. Peterson and Michael W. McConnell, eds., Scalia Constitution:聽 Essays on Law and Education聽(Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
淎dversarial Legalism, Civil Rights, and the Exceptional American State, in Thomas Burke and Jeb Barnes, eds., Varieties of Legal Order:聽 The Politics of Adversarial and Bureaucratic Legalism (Routledge, 2017)
淕ridlock and the Madisonian Constitution, in Benjamin Wittes and Pietro Nivola, eds., What Would Madison Do?聽 The Father of the Constitution Meets聽Modern American Politics (Brookings, 2015)
漈he Gridlock Illusion, The Wilson Quarterly (Winter, 2013)
淧olitics as a Vocation: An Appreciation of the Life and Work of James Q. Wilson, The Forum, vol. 10, #1 (May, 2012)
淭aking Remedies Seriously:聽 Can Courts Control Public Schools? in Joshua Dunn and Martin West, eds., From Schoolhouse to Courthouse:聽 The Judiciary Role in American Education (Brookings, 2009)
Martin Shapiro in Thomas Ginsburg and Robert Kagan, eds., Institutions and Public Law (Peter Lang, 2005)
淔rom Tax-and-Spend to Mandate-and-Sue:聽 Liberalism After the Great Society in Sidney Milkis and Jerome Mileur, eds., The Great Society and the High Tide of Liberalism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2005)
聽淐onstitutional Bureaucracy, in Mark Blitz and William Kristol, eds., Educating聽the Prince: Essays in Honor of Harvey Mansfield (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000)
淪eparation of Powers and the Strategy of Rights:聽 The Expansion of Special Education, in Landy and Levin, eds., The New Politics of Public Policy聽(Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995)
淎dministrative Law and Bureaucratic Reality, Administrative Law Review聽(Summer, 1992)
聽淧ollution Deadlines and The Coalition for Failure, The Public Interest, (Spring, 1984); reprinted with a new epilogue in Environmental Politics:聽 Public
Costs, Private Rewards, Greve and Smith, eds., (Praeger, 1992)
淭he Courts, Congress, and Programmatic Rights, in Remaking American聽Politics, Milkis and Harris, eds. (Westview, 1989)