Professor Anthony Kronman Elected to American Academy of Sciences and Letters

Sterling Professor of Law Anthony T. Kronman ’75 has been invested as a member of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters in recognition of outstanding scholarly achievement.

The investiture was conducted on Nov. 12, by Academy President Donald W. Landry, M.D., Ph.D., and Academy Board Chair Sanjeev Kulkani.

“We are honored to welcome this year’s group of outstanding scholars,” Landry said in an announcement. “Like other academies, we honor intellectual excellence, but our Academy is distinguished by a special accent on intellectual courage. All our new members this year reflect the independence of mind we strive to honor.”

Kronman has been a Sterling Professor of Law at the Law School since 2004, where he also served as dean from 1994 to 2004. As an expert in constitutional law and legal philosophy, he has taught in those areas, in addition to contracts, commercial law, bankruptcy, jurisprudence, social theory, and professional responsibility. He has also taught for many years in the undergraduate Directed Studies humanities program in Yale College.

Among his many books are “True Conservatism: Reclaiming Our Humanity in an Arrogant Age,” (2025), “After Disbelief” (2022), “The Assault on American Excellence” (2019), “Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan” (2016), and “Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life” (2007).

Kronman was named Commander of the French National Order of Merit in 2004, and in 2018, he received the Kellogg Award from his alma mater Williams College for extraordinary career achievement. He has served on the board of various nonprofit organizations including the Foote School in New Haven, Yale University Press, and the Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale. From 2002 to 2006, Professor Kronman served as a director of Adelphia Communications Corporation, where he became the lead director for three years. 

The American Academy of Sciences and Letters promotes scholarship and honors outstanding achievement in the arts, sciences, and learned professions. 

Among the 58 individuals invested as members this year were Yale Law School alumni William Baude ’07, Harry Kalven Jr. Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, and Sherif Girgis ’16, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame Law School.

Yale University faculty members Bryan Garsten, Professor of Political Science and Humanities, and David Bromwich, Sterling Professor of English, were also invested as new members.

New Academy members this year include professors of law, the arts, humanities, and sciences from higher education institutions across the country.