J.D., Yale Law School
M.Phil., Yale University
B.A., Yale University
Professor Reva Siegel is the Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Professor Siegel’s writing draws on legal history to explore questions of law and inequality and to analyze how courts interact with representative government and popular movements in interpreting the Constitution.
Her articles include: The Levels-of-Generality Game: “History and Tradition” in the Roberts Court, 47 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 565 (2024), Comstockery: How Government Censorship Gave Birth to the Law of Sexual and Reproductive Freedom, and May Again Threaten It, 134 Yale L.J. 1071 (2025) (with Mary Ziegler); The History of History and Tradition: The Roots of Dobbs’s Method (and Originalism) in the Defense of Segregation, 133 Yale L.J.F. 99 (2023); Guided by History: Protecting the Public Sphere from Weapons Threats under Bruen, 98 N.Y.U. Rev. 1795 (2023) (with Joseph Blocher); Memory Games: Dobbs’s Originalism as Anti-Democratic Living Constitutionalism — and Some Pathways for Resistance, 101 Tex. L. Rev. 1127 (2023); Equal Protection in Dobbs and Beyond: How States Protect Life Inside and Outside of the Abortion Context, 43 Colum. J. of Gender & the Law 67 (2023) (with Serena Mayeri & Melissa Murray); The Politics of Constitutional Memory, 20 Geo. J. L & Pub. Pol’y 19 (2022); Answering the Lochner Objection: Substantive Due Process and the Role of Courts in a Democracy, 96 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 1902 (2021) (with Douglas NeJaime); The Constitutionalization of Disparate Impact—Court-Centered and Popular Pathways, 106 Cal. L. Rev. 2001 (2019); and Community in Conflict: Same-Sex Marriage and Backlash, 64 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. 1728 (2017). Her books include Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (8th ed. 2022) (with Sanford Levinson, Jack Balkin, Akhil Amar & Cristina Rodriguez); Reproductive Rights and Justice Stories (2019) (co-edited with Melissa Murray & Kate Shaw), and Before Roe v. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling (2d ed. 2012) (with Linda Greenhouse).
Professor Siegel is a member of the American Philosophical Society, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an honorary fellow of the American Society for Legal History. She serves on the board of Advisors and the Board of Academic Advisors of the American Constitution Society and on the General Council of the International Society of Public Law.
Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking, with Sanford Levinson, Jack Balkin, Akhil Amar, & Cristina Rodríguez (8th ed. 2022)
Reproductive Rights and Justice Stories, co-edited with Melissa Murray & Kate Shaw (Foundation Press, 2019) including The Unfinished Story of Roe v. Wade9 (with Linda Greenhouse), on SSRN
Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling10, with Linda Greenhouse (Kaplan Publishing, 2010) (2d ed. 2012)
The Constitution in 202011, co-edited with Jack Balkin (Oxford University Press 2009), including our essay on Remembering How to Do Equality and an essay co-authored with Robert Post on Democratic Constitutionalism
Directions in Sexual Harassment Law, co-edited with Catharine A. MacKinnon (Yale University Press, 2004). Collection of 40 essays, including authored introductory essay, A Short History of Sexual Harassment
The Ambitions of “History and Tradition” in and beyond the Second Amendment, 174 U. Penn. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2026) (with Joseph Blocher)
Foreword: Democratizing Constitutional Memory, 123 Mich. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2025)
Abortion’s New Criminalization—A History-and-Tradition Right to Healthcare Access After Dobbs, 111 Va. L. Rev.(forthcoming 2025) (with Mary Ziegler)
Comstockery: How Government Censorship Gave Birth to the Law of Sexual and Reproductive Freedom, and May Again Threaten It12, 134 Yale L.J. 1071 (2025) (with Mary Ziegler)
The Levels-of-Generality Game: “History and Tradition” in the Roberts Court, 47 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 565 (2024)
Equality Emerges as a Ground for Abortion Rights In and After Dobbs (with Cary Franklin) in Roe v. Dobbs: The Past, Present and Future of a Constitutional Right to Abortion 22 (Lee Bollinger & Geoffrey R. Stone eds. 2024)
Abortion-Eugenics Discourse in Dobbs: A Social Movement History13, 2 J. Am. Con. Hist. 70 (2024) (with Mary Ziegler).
The History of History and Tradition: The Roots of Dobbs’s Method (and Originalism) in the Defense of Segregation14, 133 Yale L.J.F. 99 (2023)
Guided by History: Protecting the Public Sphere from Weapons Threats under Bruen15, 98 N.Y.U. Rev. 1795 (2023) (with Joseph Blocher)
How “History and Tradition” Perpetuates Inequality: Dobbs on Abortion’s Nineteenth-Century Criminalization18, 60 Hous. L. Rev. 901 (2023)
Memory Games: Dobbs’s Originalism as Anti-Democratic Living Constitutionalism — and Some Pathways for Resistance19, 101 Texas L. Rev. 1127 (2023)
Equal Protection in Dobbs and Beyond: How States Protect Life Inside and Outside of the Abortion Context21, 43 Colum. J. of Gender & the Law 67 (2023) (with Serena Mayeri & Melissa Murray)
Abortion: Rights in Motion — Global Constitutionalism 202224 (with Linda Greenhouse & Judge Daniela Salazar Marín)
Race and Guns, Courts and Democracy25, 135 Harv. L. Rev. F. 449 (2022) (with Joseph Blocher)
The Remaking of the Second Amendment26, N.Y. REVIEW OF BOOKS, June 10, 2022 (with Duncan Hosie)
The Politics of Constitutional Memory27, 20 Geo. J. L. & Pub. Policy 19 (2022)
Answering the Lochner Objection: Substantive Due Process and the Role of Courts in a Democracy28, 96 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 1902 (2021) (with Douglas NeJaime), reprinted in 38 Civil Rights Litigation and Attorney Fees Handbook (Steven Salzman ed. 2022).
Why Restrict Abortion? Expanding the Frame on June Medical, 2020 Sup Ct Rev. 277 (2021).
When Guns Threaten the Public Sphere: A New Account of Public Safety Regulation Under Heller29, 115 Nw L. Rev. 139 (2021) (with Joseph Blocher)
Surrogacy, Autonomy, and Equality30, 2020 Global Constitutionalism Seminar Volume, Yale Law School (with Douglas NeJaime)
Conscience Wars in the Americas31, 5 Latin Am. L. Rev. 1 (2020) (with Douglas NeJaime)
Guerras de conciencia en las Américas (Conscience Wars in the Americas)32, 5 Latin Am. L. Rev. 1 (2020) (with Doug NeJaime)
What Obergefell v. Hodges Should Have Said, Concurring Opinion33 (with Doug NeJaime), in WHAT OBERGEFELL V. HODGES SHOULD HAVE SAID (Jack Balkin ed. 2020)
Why Regulate Guns?34, 48(4) J.L. Med. & Ethics (2020) (with Joseph Blocher)
The Pregnant Citizen, from Suffrage to the Present35, Geo. L.J. 19th Amend. Special Edition 167 (2020), reprinted in 37 Civil Rights Litigation and Attorney Fees Handbook (Steven Salzman ed. 2021).
The Nineteenth Amendment and the Democratization of the Family36, 129 Yale L.J.F. 450 (2020), reprinted in 36 Civil Rights Litigation and Attorney Fees Handbook (Steven Salzman ed. 2020).
The Constitutionalization of Disparate Impact—Court-Centered and Popular Pathways37, 106 Cal. L. Rev. 2001 (2019)
Religious Exemptions and Antidiscrimination Law in Masterpiece Cakeshop38, 128 Yale L.J.F. 201 (2018) (with Doug NeJaime)
Blind Justice: Why the Court Refused to Accept Statistical Evidence of Discriminatory Purpose in McCleskey v. Kemp—and Some Pathways for Change39, 112 Nw. L. Rev. 1269 (2018)
"Critical Legal Histories" and Law's (In)determinacy40, 70 STAN. L. REV. 1673 (2018)
Religious Accommodation, and its Limits, in a Pluralist Society41, in RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND LGBT RIGHTS: POSSIBILITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR FINDING COMMON GROUND (Robin Fretwell Wilson & William Eskridge, Jr. eds., 2018) (with Doug NeJaime)
Cutler Lecture: Pregnancy as a Normal Condition of Employment: Comparative and Role-Based Accounts of Discrimination42, 58 Wm & Mary L. Rev. 971 (2018)
ProChoiceLife: Asking Who Protects Life and How—and Why It Matters In Law and Politics43, 93 Ind. L.J. 207 (2018)
Conscience Wars in Transnational Perspective: Religious Liberty, Third-Party Harm, and Pluralism44 in THE CONSCIENCE WARS: RETHINKING THE BALANCE BETWEEN RELIGION, IDENTITY, AND EQUALITY (Susanna Mancini & Michel Rosenfeld eds., Cambridge Univ. Press, 2018) (with Doug NeJaime)
Community in Conflict: Same-Sex Marriage and Backlash45, 64 U.C.L.A. L. REV. 1728 (2017)
The Difference a Whole Woman Makes: Protection for the Abortion Right After Whole Woman’s Health46, 126 Yale L.J. F. 149 (2016) (with Linda Greenhouse)
Casey and the Clinic Closings: When “Protecting Health” Obstructs Choice47, 125 Yale L.J. 1428 (2016) (with Linda Greenhouse)
Democratic Constitutionalism, National Constitution Center White Paper (2015) (with Robert Post)
Conscience and the Culture Wars48, American Prospect, Summer 2015 (with Doug NeJaime)
Conscience Wars: Complicity-Based Conscience Claims in Religion and Politics49, 124 Yale L.J. 2516 (2015) (with Doug NeJaime)
Compelling Interests and Contraception50, 47 Conn. L. Rev. 1026 (May 2015) (with Neil Siegel)
Contraception as a Sex Equality Right51, 124 Yale L.J. F. (2015) (with Neil Siegel)
How Conflict Entrenched the Right to Privacy52, 124 Yale L.J. F. 316 (2015)
Meador Lecture: Race-Conscious but Race-Neutral: The Constitutionality of Disparate Impact in the Roberts Court53, 66 Ala. L. Rev. 663 (2015)
Harris Lecture: Abortion and the “Woman Question”: Forty Years of Debate54, 89 Ind. L.J. 1365 (2014)
Dignity and the Duty to Protect Unborn Life in UNDERSTANDING HUMAN DIGNITY (Christopher McCrudden ed., 2014)
The Supreme Court, 2012 Term Foreword: Equality Divided, 127 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (2013)
Equality Arguments for Abortion Rights55, 60 UCLA L. Rev. Disc. 160 (2013) (with Neil Siegel)
Backlash to the Future? From Roe to Perry56, 60 UCLA L. Rev. Disc. 240 (2013) (with Linda Greenhouse)
Equality's Frontiers: How Congress's Section 5 Power Can Secure Transformative Equality (as Justice Ginsburg Illustrates in Coleman), 122 YaleL.J. Online 267 (2013).
Equality and Choice: Sex Equality Perspectives on Reproductive Rights in the Work of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 25 Colum. J. Gender & L. 63 (2013).
The Constitutionalization of Abortion, in Michel Rosenfeld and Andras Sajo, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law 1057 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012), reprinted in Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective: Cases and Controversies (Rebecca J. Cook, Joanna Erdman, and Bernard H. Dickens 2014).
Dignity and Sexuality: Claims on Dignity in Transnational Debates Over Abortion and Same-Sex Marriage57, 10 Intl. J. Con. L. 335 (2012).
Before (and After) Roe v. Wade: New Questions About Backlash58, 120 YALE L.J.2028 (2011) (with Linda Greenhouse)
From Colorblindness to Antibalkanization: An Emerging Ground of Decision in Race Equality Cases59, 120 YALE L.J. 1278 (2011)
Roe’s Roots: The Women’s Rights Claims that Engendered Roe, 90 B. U. L. Rev. 1875 (2010)
Struck By Stereotype: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Pregnancy Discrimination as Sex Discrimination60, 59 DUKE L.J. 771 (2010) (with Neil Siegel), reprinted in The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Scott Dodson ed. 2015)
Pregnancy and Sex-Role Stereotyping, From Struck to Carhart,61 70 OHIO ST. L.J. 1095 (2009) (with Neil Siegel)
Dignity and Reproductive Rights. SELA (The Seminario en Latinoamérica de Teoría Constitucional y Política – the Seminar in Latin America on Constitutional and Political Theory), June 2009 (Asunción, Paraguay).
Heller and Originalism's Dead Hand - In Theory and Practice62, 56 U.C.L.A. L. REV. 1399-1424 (2009)
Introduction: The Constitutional Law and Politics of Reproductive Rights63, 118 YALE L.J. 1312-17 (2009)
Dead or Alive: Originalism as Popular Constitutionalism in Heller, 122 HARV. L. REV. 191 (2008), reprinted in THE SECOND AMENDMENT ON TRIAL: CRITICAL ESSAYS ON DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA V. HELLER (Saul Cornell & Nathan Kozuskanich eds. 2013)
Dignity and the Politics of Protection: Abortion Restrictions Under Casey/Carhart64 Casey/Carhart, 117 YALE L.J. 1694-1800 (2008)
2007 Brainerd Currie Lecture.The Right's Reasons: Constitutional Conflict and the Spread of Woman-Protective Antiabortion Argument65, 57 DUKE L.J. 1641 (2008)
Roe Rage: Democratic Constitutionalism and Backlash66, 42 HARV.C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 373 (co-authored with Robert Post)
Sex Equality Arguments for Reproductive Rights: Their Critical Basis and Evolving Constitutional Expression67, 56 EMORY L. J. 815 (2007)
2006 Baum Lecture.The New Politics of Abortion: An Equality Analysis of Woman-Protective Abortion Restrictions, 2007 U. ILL. LAW REV 991 (2007)
Originalism As a Political Practice: The Right’s Living Constitution, 75 FORDHAM L. REV. 546-74 (2006) (co-authored with Robert Post)
2005-06 Brennan Center Symposium Lecture, Constitutional Culture, Social Movement Conflict and Constitutional Change: The Case of the de facto ERA, 94 CAL. L. REV. 1323-1419 (2006)
Mommy Dearest?: Woman-Protective Antiabortion Argument, AMERICAN PROSPECT (October 2006) (with Sarah Blustain)
Democratic Constitutionalism: A Reply to Professor Barron68, 1 HARV. L. & POL'Y REV. (Online) (Sept. 18, 2006) (co-authored with Robert Post)
“You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby”: Rehnquist’s New Approach to Pregnancy Discrimination in Hibbs, 58 STAN. L. REV. 1871-98 (2006)
Principles, Practices, and Social Movements, 154 U. PENN. L. REV. 927-50 (2006) (co-authored with Jack M. Balkin)
Questioning Justice: Law and Politics in Judicial Confirmation Hearings, YALE LAW JOURNAL (THE POCKET PART), Jan. 2006, (co-authored with Robert Post)
Roe as Sex Equality Opinion in WHAT ROE SHOULD HAVE SAID (J.M. Balkin ed. NYU Press 2005)
The Jurisgenerative Role of Social Movements in U.S.Constitutional Law (for publication with the papers of the Seminario en Latino América de Teoria Constitucional y Politica (SELA), June 10-12, 2004, Oaxaca, México)
Popular Constitutionalism, Departmentalism, and Judicial Supremacy, 92 CALIF. L. REV. 1027-43 (2004) (co-authored with Robert Post)
Gender and the United States Constitution: Equal Protection, Privacy, and Federalism, in CONSTITUTING WOMEN: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES (eds. Ruth Rubio-Marin & Beverley Baines, Cambridge Press 2004)
Equality Talk: Antisubordination and Anticlassification Values in Constitutional Struggles Over Brown, 117 HARV. L. REV. 1470-1547 (2004)
The American Civil Rights Tradition-- Anticlassification or Antisubordination?, in ISSUES IN LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP, THE ORIGINS AND FATE OF ANTISUBORDINATION THEORY: A SYMPOSIUM ON OWEN FISS'S "GROUPS AND THE EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE," reprinted in 58 U. MIAMI L. REV. 9 (2004)
Legislative Constitutionalism and Section Five Power: Policentric Interpretation of the Family and Medical Leave Act, 112 YALE L.J.1943-2059 (2003) (co-authored with Robert Post)
Protecting the Constitution from the People: Juricentric Restrictions on Section Five Power, 78 IND. L.J. 1-45 (2003) (co-authored with Robert Post)
She the People: The Nineteenth Amendment, Sex Equality, Federalism, and the Family, 115 HARV. L. REV. 947-1046 (2002)
Text in Contest: Gender and the Constitution from a Social Movement Perspective, 150 U. PENN. L. REV. 297-351 (2001)
Equal Protection By Law: Federal Antidiscrimination Legislation After Morrison and Kimel, 110 YALE L.J. 441-526 ( 2000) (co-authored with Robert Post)
Discrimination in the Eyes of the Law: How “Color Blindness” Discourse Disrupts and Rationalizes Social Stratification, 88 CALIF. L. REV. 77-118 (2000), reprinted in Prejudicial Appearances (Duke Press 2001)
Collective Memory and the Nineteenth Amendment: Reasoning About “the Woman Question” in the Discourse of Sex Discrimination in HISTORY, MEMORY, AND THE LAW (Austin Sarat & Thomas R. Kearnes eds. 1999)
The Racial Rhetorics of Colorblind Constitutionalism: The Case of Hopwood v. Texas in RACE AND REPRESENTATION: AFFIRMATIVE ACTION (Robert Post & Michael Rogin eds.1998)
Valuing Housework: Nineteenth-Century Anxieties about the Commodification of Domestic Labor, in Special Issue: Changing Forms of Payment, 41 AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST 1437-51 (1998)
Civil Rights Reform in Historical Perspective: Regulating Marital Violence in REDEFINING EQUALITY (Neil Devins & David Douglas eds.1998)
Why Equal Protection No Longer Protects: The Evolving Forms of Status-Enforcing State Action, 49 STAN. L. REV.1111-1148 (1997)
“The Rule of Love”: Wife Beating as Prerogative and Privacy, 105 YALE L.J. 2117-2206 (1996)
In the Eyes of the Law: Reflections on the Authority of Legal Discourse in LAW'S STORIES: NARRATIVE AND RHETORIC IN THE LAW (Peter Brooks & Paul Gewirtz eds., 1996)
Modernizing Wife Beating in YALE LAW REPORT (Fall 1996)
Abortion in A COMPANION TO AMERICAN THOUGHT (R. Fox & J. Kloppenberg eds., 1995)
Abortion As a Sex Equality Right: Its Basis in Feminist Theory in MOTHERS IN LAW: FEMINIST THEORY AND THE LEGAL REGULATION OF MOTHERHOOD (Martha Fineman & Isabel Karpin eds., 1995)
The Modernization of Marital Status Law: Adjudicating Wives' Rights to Earnings, 1860-1930, 82 GEO. L.J. 2127-2211 (1995)
Home As Work: The First Woman's Rights Claims Concerning Wives' Household Labor, 1850 - 1880, 103 YALE L.J. 1073-1217 (1994)
Reasoning From the Body: An Historical Perspective on Abortion Regulation and Questions of Equal Protection, 44 STAN. L. REV. 261-381 (1992)
Book Review, 3 BERKLEY WOMEN'S L.J. 171 (1988) (reviewing S. LEHRER, ORIGINS OF PROTECTIVE LABOR LEGISLATION FOR WOMEN, 1905 - 1915 (1987))
Employment Equality Under the Pregnancy Discrimination Amendment of 1978, 94 YALE L.J. 929 (1985)
