Professor Schmidt earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School, a Ph.D. in the history of
American civilization and an M.A. in history from Harvard University, and a B.A. from
Dartmouth College. While in law school, he served as executive articles editor for the
Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. 

His current book project, titled Creating Brown v. Board of Education: Law, Ideology, and
Constitutional Change, 1941-2007, examines the political and intellectual context behind
the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 school desegregation decision and efforts of
subsequent generations to redefine Brown's meaning and significance. He is also
working on articles on topics that include the constitutional consequences of the student
lunch counter sit-in movement of 1960, post-World War II community preservation efforts
in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, and the role of government in the
development of Major League Baseball. 

Professor Schmidt is a visiting scholar at the American Bar Foundation and an associate
editor of Law & Social Inquiry. He has taught history at Dartmouth College and
Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. He has received fellowships from the American Society
for Legal History, the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, and
the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard. 

Professor Schmidt joined the Chicago-Kent faculty in 2008. He teaches in the areas of
constitutional law, legal history, local government law, and sports law.

Civil Rights

PDF

The Sit-Ins and the State Action Doctrine, ExpressO (2009)
By taking their seats at “whites only” lunch counters across the South in the spring...
 

OpenURL

Brown and the Colorblind Constitution, Cornell Law Review (2008)
 

Constitutional Law

PDF

The Sit-Ins and the State Action Doctrine, ExpressO (2009)
By taking their seats at “whites only” lunch counters across the South in the spring...
 

Legal History

PDF

The Sit-Ins and the State Action Doctrine, ExpressO (2009)
By taking their seats at “whites only” lunch counters across the South in the spring...
 

Link

Listening to History? Parents Involved, Brown, and the Colorblind Constitution, Legal Workshop (2009)
 

Hugo Black's Civil Rights Movement, Transformations in American Legal History: Essays in Honor of Professor Morton J. Horwitz (2009)
 

J. Waties Waring, Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (2009)
 

Adderley v. Florida, 385 U.S. 39 (1966), Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (2008)
 

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Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288 (1936), Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (2008)
 

Frank Robinson, African American National Biography (2008)
 

OpenURL

"Freedom Comes Only from the Law": The Debate over Law's Capacity and the Making of Brown v. Board of Education, Utah Law Review (2008)
 

George Stovey, African American National Biography (2008)
 

OpenURL

Book Review, reviewing Davison M. Douglas, Jim Crow Moves North: The Battle over Northern School Segregation, 1865-1954 (2005), Michigan Historical Review (2007)
 

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