People

Olatunde Johnson is a Faculty Director for the Constitutional Democracy Initiative and the Ruth Bader Ginsburg '59 Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.  Professor Johnson writes and teaches in the area of legislation, civil procedure and constitutional law, specializing in statutory antidiscrimination law, equality law, and congressional power.  Johnson clerked for David Tatel on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and for Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court.  She also previously served as constitutional and civil rights counsel to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as an attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF).  B.A., Yale; J.D., Stanford. 

Jedediah Purdy is a Faculty Director for the Constitutional Democracy Initiative and the William S. Beinecke Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He teaches in constitutional, property, and environmental law, as well as legal and political theory. His most recent book, Two Cheers for Politics, draws on history, philosophy, law, and the current political scene to argue that “democracy is flawed, scary, and our best hope.” He is the author of six previous books on law and politics as well as many law review articles and essays. He is a co-founder of the Law and Political Economy Initiative and co-editor of the New Legal Synthesis from Yale University Press.