Location: Home » Authors
William J. Stuntz
  Email:stuntz@law.harvard.edu

William J. Stuntz is a Professor at Harvard Law School.
Articles by William J. Stuntz
The Anti-Theorists: What Bush and Rehnquist Had in Common
06 Sep 2005
Bush and Rehnquist shared a trait, an odd one that has had large consequences for both men, and for the country. Bush is a pragmatist who has a knack for making ideologues think he's one of them. So was Rehnquist.
Turning Faith Into Elevator Music
01 Jul 2005
Seeing the Ten Commandments in public spaces is a little like hearing the Miranda warnings on 'Law and Order,' which doesn't make anyone think about the real meaning of Miranda (whatever that is) because it doesn't make anyone think at all. It's the social equivalent of elevator music. Religious people shouldn't want their faith to be elevator music.
The Right Has the Wrong Legal Theory
11 Jan 2005
Odds are, George W. Bush will soon appoint a new Chief Justice. More Supreme Court appointments will follow, along with hundreds of lower-court judges. The federal judiciary will soon be Bush Country, a fact that could have larger long-term effects than Social Security reform and the war in Iraq. Unless something changes, the effects will be bad. Bill Stuntz explains why the right needs to scrap federalism, originalism and formalism.
The Academic Left and the Christian Right, Part II
04 Jan 2005
The intellectual left and the religious right not only could come together. Given the right kind of political leadership, they will. What ideological territory, what issue space, can secular academics and evangelical Christians both occupy? Bill Stuntz follows his influential essay "Faculty Clubs and Church Pews" with an exploration of some surprising common ground.
Faculty Clubs and Church Pews
29 Nov 2004
The past few months have seen a lot of talk about red and blue America, mostly by people on one or the other side of the partisan divide who find the other side a mystery. It isn't a mystery to me, because I live on both sides. For the past twenty years, I've belonged to evangelical Protestant churches. And for the past eighteen years, I've worked in secular universities. Not surprisingly, each of these institutions is enemy territory to the other. But the enmity is needless. Bill Stuntz on politics, churches and universities in the twenty-first century.
Sunrise in the West
09 Nov 2004
The conventional wisdom holds that America is and always has been divided between North and South. Actually, there is a bigger and deeper divide: between East and West. The West is winning, hands down.
MapQuest
04 Nov 2004
Bill Stuntz looks at electoral maps and electoral math and finds a piece conventional wisdom that's actually pretty wise: America divides into red and blue because those are the colors the parties give us. Perhaps the smart move is to paint with a different color. Purple beats red or blue, every time. In 2008, when Rudy Giuliani faces off against Barack Obama, those maps will look very different.
Why Truman Beat Dewey - and Why Bush Beat Kerry
03 Nov 2004
TCS REWIND: An incumbent President from the heartland faces a strong, experienced challenger from the Northeast. The challenger is strong in part because the incumbent seems weak -- inarticulate and gaffe-prone. Bill Stuntz explains the Bush victory... before it even happened.
1864 Redux?
02 Nov 2004
The surest sign that success is near at hand is the Osama bin Laden videotape released last week. The bin Laden in that video is a beaten man, railing at a world that has not gone according to his murderous plans. If American voters have their eyes open, that video will have the same effect Sherman's capture of Atlanta had in 1864: people will see the strategic situation for what it is, and vote accordingly.
Daschle May Lose -- And Republicans May Regret It
01 Nov 2004
How a victory for John Thune may make the achievement of a dominant majority for the GOP harder to grasp in the future.
Why Truman Defeats Dewey - and Bush Beats Kerry?
26 Oct 2004
An incumbent President from the heartland faces a strong, experienced challenger from the Northeast. The challenger is strong in part because the incumbent seems weak -- inarticulate and gaffe-prone. The author explains a tale of two elections.
Our Coming Electoral Train Wrecks
22 Oct 2004
What would happen if Bush or Kerry were to win the popular vote by three or four million votes -- but still lose in the electoral college? Welcome to the Mother of All Legitimacy Crises. Bill Stuntz explains why this might happen -- and what to do about it.
Terrorism and the Mob
20 Oct 2004
By now, everyone in America knows that John Kerry has compared fighting terrorism to prosecuting organized crime figures for gambling and prostitution. The comparison has attracted a lot of criticism. Actually, it's a pretty good analogy -- but it leads to a different lesson than Kerry believes.
  ©2000-2010 TCS Daily | Home | Contact TCS | About TCS | Issues | Links | Submissions | Toolbox | Legal | Reprints | Advertise with TCS