Professor Richard L. Aynes earned Bachelor and Juris Doctor degrees from Miami University and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law before joining The University of Akron School of Law in 1976 as coordinator of the Appellate Review Office and a lecturer. He has held the rank of Professor since 1986. He served as UA’s interim athletics director in 1993-94 and returned to Akron Law where he held the John F. Seiberling Chair of Constitutional Law for the balance of 1994. Professor Aynes was appointed Dean of Akron Law in 1995, a position he held through 2007. Beginning in spring 2008 he returned to the faculty as holder the John F. Seiberling Chair of Law and Director of the Constitutional Law Center. His research and teaching interests include constitutional law, the 14th Amendment and legal history. He has written numerous articles in the area of Constitutional Law including articles published in the Yale Law Journal, the Journal of Southern Legal History, the Chicago Kent Law Review and the Catholic University Law Review. Professor Aynes has been admitted to the bar for the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and U.S. District Court for Northern Ohio. Among his current and past memberships are the American Bar Association, Ohio State Bar Association, Akron Bar Association, Western Reserve Legal Services (Board of Trustees), ABA Special Committee of Evaluation of Judicial Performance (reporter), and consultant to the ABA Victim's Committee, Ohio Supreme Court Racial Fairness Implementation Committee, Ohio Supreme Court Continuing Legal Education Committee and Scanlon Inn of Court.
Articles
Stone Soup: Thoughts on Balancing a Deanship and Family Life After Twelve Years as Dean, University of Toledo Law Review (2008)
JUNE 30, 2007 marked the conclusion of my twelve-year service as Dean of the University...
Unintended Consequences of the Fourteenth Amendment and What They Tell us About its Interpretation, Akron Law Review (2006)
The Fourteenth Amendment has been compared to “second American Constitution.” Indeed, it is said that...
The Continuing Importance of Congressman John A. Bingham and the Fourteenth Amendment, Akron Law Review (2003)
Lead article in a symposium issue.
In the now-famous 1830s chronicle of a visit...
Bradwell v. Illinois: Chief Justice Chase's Dissent and the "Sphere of Women's Work", Louisiana Law Review (1999)
Salmon P. Chase is remembered today, if at all, as a Secretary of the Treasury...
Refined Incorporation and the Bill of Rights, University of Richmond Law Review (1999)
In Professor Akhil Reed Amar's The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction, the voices of...
Books
Contributions to Books
Ohio and the Drafting and Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment (Chapter 9), The History of Ohio Law (2004)
Four articles about cases covering the Fourteenth Amendment, interstate commerce power, constitutionality of 1864 income tax, and due process., Dictionary of American History (2003)
Submitted articles about:
1.) Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873) (first cases under the...
Three articles on the Fourteenth Amendment, Catherine (Kate) Chase Sprague, and the Impeachment Trial of Andrew Johnson, Historical Dictionary of the Gilded Age (2003)
Three articles:
1.) The Fourteenth Amendment
2.) Catherine (Kate) Chase Sprague
3.) The Impeachment Trial...
Four essays on key court cases concerning religion and the Blaine Amendment, Religion and American Law: an Encyclopedia (2000)
Articles: 1.) Blaine Amendment, at 39.
2.) Board of Education v. Minor, 23 Ohio...
Other Works
Book Review: Heather Cox Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction, The Historian (2006)
Reviewing Heather Cox Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil...
Book Review: Pamela Brandwein, Reconstructing Reconstruction, The Supreme Court and the Production of Historical Truth, American Journal of Legal History (2001)
Reviewing Pamela Brandwein, Reconstructing Reconstruction: The Supreme Court and the Production of Historical Truth (Duke...
Book Review: Akhil Amar, the Bill of Rights, and the Seven Deadly Sins of Legal Scholarship, William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal (2000)
The publication of The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction by one of the nation's...
Book Review: Wayne D. Moore, Constitutional Rights and Power of the People, The Historian (1998)
Reviewing Wayne D. Moore, Constitutional Rights and Power of the People (Princeton University Press 1996).
Book Review: Stephen L. Wasby, Race Relations Litigation in an Age of Complexity, American Journal of Legal History (1997)
Reviewing Stephen L. Wasby, Race Relations Litigation in an Age of Complexity (University Press of...