RUBENFELD
Jed

• 1. Career

Jed L. Rubenfeld is an American lawyer, constitutional scholar, and novelist. He is the Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is an expert on constitutional law, privacy, and the First Amendment. He joined the Yale faculty in 1990 and was appointed to a full professorship in 1994. Rubenfeld has also served as a United States Representative at the Council of Europe and has taught as a visiting professor at both the Stanford Law School and the Duke University School of Law. Married to Yale law professor Amy Chua with whom he has two daughters, he is also the author of two novels, including the million-copy bestseller, The Interpretation of Murder.

Career

Rubenfeld clerked for Judge Joseph T. Sneed on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1986–1987. After his clerkship, he worked as an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and as an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York.

Rubenfeld is the author of numerous publications and books, including Freedom and Time: A Theory of Constitutional Self-Government, Revolution by Judiciary, and most recently The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America, which he co-wrote with his wife, Amy Chua, best known for her 2011 book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

His scholarship has focused on American Constitutional law with particular focus on the First Amendment, which he has articulated as codifying an “anti-orthodoxy principle.” He has also written widely cited articles defending a constitutional right to abortion, same-sex marriage, strong protections against surveillance, and the legality of affirmative action. Rubenfeld’s work has been praised by peers within the legal academy. Professor Akhil Amar has described him as “the most gifted constitutional theorist (not to mention the most elegant legal writer) of his generation,” and the Law and Politics Book Review called Rubenfeld "a leading contemporary thinker in constitutional interpretation whose ideas will help shape this field for some time."

More recently, Rubenfeld has become one of the country’s leading scholars on the First Amendment implications of social media censorship, arguing that government pressure combined with behind-the-scenes communications and concerted action can turn social media censorship into a First Amendment violation. He has argued this theory in federal court, representing Children's Health Defense, a non-profit that publishes information about supposed harms associated with vaccines, in a lawsuit against Facebook. Rubenfeld has also recently questioned the legality of the Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) practices of large asset managers, arguing that fiduciaries who prioritize social-impact investing may be violating their duty of loyalty.