Professor Akhil Reed Amar Awarded a 2024 Barry Prize

Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science Akhil Reed Amar ’84 has been awarded one of 10 Barry Prizes from the American Academy of Sciences and Letters.

The prize comes in recognition of “intellectual excellence and courage,” according to an announcement from the Academy. The award was conferred by Academy President Donald W. Landry of Columbia University and Board Chair Sanjeev R. Kulkarni of Princeton University in a ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 23. 

At the same event, David Boies Professor of Law Keith E. Whittington was invested as a member of the Academy.

The Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement is the Academy’s premier initiative to promote excellence in scholarship. Open to scholars across diverse fields and disciplines, the prize honors “those whose work has made outstanding contributions to humanity's understanding and cultivation of the good, the true, and the beautiful,” according to the Academy. 

The citation for Amar praised his contributions and influence across the academy, the legal profession, government, and popular discourse.

“Akhil Reed Amar has deepened America’s understanding of its constitutional system of government,” the citation reads. “The combination of extraordinary erudition and his gift for enlightening audiences has established him as one of the most-cited legal scholars of all time as well as a leading contributor to public understanding of constitutional law.”

Amar teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. His work has won awards from both the American Bar Association and the Federalist Society, and he has been cited by Supreme Court justices across the spectrum in more than four dozen cases.

He is the author of more than 100 law review articles and several books, most notably “The Bill of Rights” (1998), “America’s Constitution” (2005), “America’s Unwritten Constitution” (2012), “The Constitution Today” (2016), and “The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760–1840” (2021). He also hosts a weekly podcast, “Amarica’s Constitution.”

The American Academy of Sciences and Letters promotes scholarship and honors outstanding achievement in the arts, sciences, and learned professions. To these ends, the Academy awards 10 Barry Prizes each year, honoring scholars of extraordinary achievement and dedication to excellence in the arts, sciences and learned professions.