Political Science Faculty

R. Shep Melnick

Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr., Professor of American Politics

Photo of R. Shep Melnick

R. Shep Melnick

Ph.D.

Contact

McGuinn Hall Room 226

Telephone: 617-552-1896

Email: shep.melnick@bc.edu

Education

  • B.A. Harvard
  • M.A. Harvard
  • Ph.D. Harvard

Research Interests

Courts; Public Policy

Office Hours

M 4:30-6 pm, W 2-3 pm

Curriculum Vitae

Profile

R. Shep Melnick is the Thomas P. O鈥橬eill, Jr. Professor of American Politics at 艾可直播 College and co-chair of the Harvard Program on Constitutional Government.聽 He is the author of 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鈥檚 鈥淟asting Contribution鈥� award.聽 He received his BA and PhD from Harvard, and taught at Harvard and Brandeis before moving to 艾可直播 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.

Books

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)

Select Articles & Chapters

鈥淒esegregation, Then and Now,鈥� National Affairs, Winter, 2020

鈥淎nalyzing the Department of Education鈥檚 final Title IX rules on sexual misconduct,鈥� Brookings Report, June 11, 2020

鈥淭he Title IX Spotlight Shifts from the Campus to the Schoolhouse,鈥� 贰诲耻肠补迟颈辞苍听狈别虫迟, May 27, 2020

鈥淭he Mismeasure of 鈥楨nforcement,鈥欌�� Education Next Blog, February, 2020

鈥淭he Department of Education鈥檚 Proposed Sexual Harassment Rules:聽 Looking Beyond the Rhetoric,鈥� Brookings Brief, January, 2019

鈥淭he Strange Evolution of Title IX,鈥� National Affairs, Summer, 2018

鈥淩ethinking Federal Regulation of Sexual Harassment:聽 The Need for Debate, not Demagoguery in the Age of Trump,鈥� Education Next, Winter, 2018

鈥淪exual Harassment and the Evolving Civil Rights State,鈥� 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)

鈥淪calia鈥檚 Dilemmas as a Conservative Jurist,鈥� in Paul E. Peterson and Michael W. McConnell, eds., Scalia鈥檚 Constitution:聽 Essays on Law and Education聽(Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)

鈥淎dversarial Legalism, Civil Rights, and the Exceptional American State,鈥� in Thomas Burke and Jeb Barnes, eds., Varieties of Legal Order:聽 The Politics of Adversarial and Bureaucratic Legalism (Routledge, 2017)

鈥淕ridlock and the Madisonian Constitution,鈥� in Benjamin Wittes and Pietro Nivola, eds., What Would Madison Do?聽 The Father of the Constitution Meets聽Modern American Politics (Brookings, 2015)

鈥漈he Gridlock Illusion,鈥� The Wilson Quarterly (Winter, 2013)

鈥淧olitics as a Vocation: An Appreciation of the Life and Work of James Q. Wilson,鈥� The Forum, vol. 10, #1 (May, 2012)

鈥淭aking Remedies Seriously:聽 Can Courts Control Public Schools?鈥� in Joshua Dunn and Martin West, eds., From Schoolhouse to Courthouse:聽 The Judiciary鈥檚 Role in American Education (Brookings, 2009)

Martin Shapiro鈥� in Thomas Ginsburg and Robert Kagan, eds., Institutions and Public Law (Peter Lang, 2005)

鈥淔rom Tax-and-Spend to Mandate-and-Sue:聽 Liberalism After the Great Society鈥� in Sidney Milkis and Jerome Mileur, eds., The Great Society and the High Tide of Liberalism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2005)

聽鈥淐onstitutional Bureaucracy,鈥� in Mark Blitz and William Kristol, eds., Educating聽the Prince: Essays in Honor of Harvey Mansfield (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000)

鈥淪eparation of Powers and the Strategy of Rights:聽 The Expansion of Special Education,鈥� in Landy and Levin, eds., The New Politics of Public Policy聽(Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995)

鈥淎dministrative Law and Bureaucratic Reality,鈥� Administrative Law Review聽(Summer, 1992)

聽鈥淧ollution Deadlines and The Coalition for Failure,鈥� The Public Interest, (Spring, 1984); reprinted with a new epilogue in Environmental Politics:聽 Public

Costs, Private Rewards, Greve and Smith, eds., (Praeger, 1992)

鈥淭he Courts, Congress, and Programmatic Rights,鈥� in Remaking American聽Politics, Milkis and Harris, eds. (Westview, 1989)

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