Biography

Peter H. Schuck is the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor of Law at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. He has held this chair since 1984, and also served as Deputy Dean of the Law School. His major fields of teaching and research are tort law; immigration, citizenship, and refugee law; groups, diversity, and law; and administrative law. He has written on a broad range of other public policy topics. His most recent books include Meditations of a Militant Moderate: Cool Views on Hot Issues (2006); Immigration Stories (co-editor, 2005); Foundations of Administrative Law (editor, 2d ed., 2004)  Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance (Harvard/Belknap, 2003); The Limits of Law: Essays on Democratic Governance (2000); Citizens, Strangers, and In-Betweens: Essays on Immigration and Citizenship (1998); and Paths to Inclusion: The Integration of Migrants in the United States and Germany (co-editor, 1998).  Earlier books include Suing Government: Citizen Remedies for Official Wrongs (1983); Citizenship Without Consent: Illegal Aliens in the American Policy (with Rogers M. Smith, 1985); Agent Orange on Trial: Mass Toxic Disasters in the Courts (1987); Tort Law and the Public Interest: Competition, Innovation, and Consumer Welfare (editor, 1991); and The Judiciary Committees (1974). His other writing consists of more than 100 articles that have appeared in a wide variety of scholarly, professional, and popular journals. He is a member of the American Law Institute's advisory committee for the Restatement of Torts (Third), Basic Principles, is a contributing editor to The American Lawyer, has served as an arbitrator and as an expert witness in a variety of disputes, and has testified in dozens of congressional hearings. He was awarded a Harvard Graduate Prize Fellowship (1968-70), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1984-85), a residency at Rockefeller Foundation center in Bellagio (2001), and a Fulbright Senior Fellowship to lecture in India (2004). His current projects include many articles on various subjects, and two books: Targeting in Social Programs: Avoiding Bad Bets, Removing Bad Apples (forthcoming, Brookings Institution Press, 2006) (with Richard J. Zeckhauser), and Understanding America: The Institutions and Policies that Shape America and the World (co-edited with James Q. Wilson). Prior to joining the Yale faculty in 1979, he was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1977-79), Director of the Washington Office of Consumers Union (1972-77), and consultant to the Center for Study of Responsive Law (1971-72). He also practiced law in New York City (1965-68) and holds degrees from Cornell (B.A. 1962), Harvard Law School (J.D. 1965), N.Y.U. Law School (Ll.M. in International Law 1966), and Harvard University (M.A. in Government 1969). He lives in New York City where he has an office and teaches periodically at NYU Law School. He and his wife have two grown children.