Stephen L. Carter

Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, where he has taught since 1982. Among his courses are law and religion, the ethics of war, contracts, evidence, and professional responsibility. Among his books on law and politics are God’s Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics; Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy; The Dissent of the Governed: A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty; The Confirmation Mess: Cleaning up the Federal Appointments Process; The Violence of Peace: America’s Wars in the Age of Obama; and The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion.  Professor Carter writes a column for Bloomberg View and is a regular contributor to Newsweek and The Daily Beast.  He blogs about professional football for the Washington Post. Professor Carter also writes fiction.  His novel The Emperor of Ocean Park spent eleven weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. His novel, The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln, was published in 2012. His novella “The Hereditary Thurifer” recently appeared in the crime anthology, The Dark End of the Street. Professor Carter was formerly a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, as well as for Judge Spottswood W. Robinson, III, of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School, and has received eight honorary degrees.