Professor Justin Driver to Receive Faculty Prize from Buckley Institute
Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law Justin Driver will receive the Buckley Institute’s Lux et Veritas Faculty Prize for 2026. Since 2022, the Institute has awarded the annual prize to a Yale faculty member who goes above and beyond to create a classroom environment conducive to open inquiry.
Justin Driver teaches and writes in the field of constitutional law and is the author of “The Fall of Affirmative Action: Race, the Supreme Court, and the Future of Higher Education,” which was selected as an Editors’ Choice of The New York Times Book Review.
A Guggenheim Fellow, an elected member of the American Law Institute, and an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Driver served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. A recipient of the American Society for Legal History’s William Nelson Cromwell Article Prize, Driver has a distinguished publication record in the nation’s leading law reviews. He has also written extensively for general audiences, including pieces in The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
Driver was chosen from 115 nominees for encouraging students to engage with controversial subjects across the political spectrum. Law School student Kevin Xiao ’27 observed that “on topics from race-based affirmative action to abortion rights, Professor Driver not only allowed heterodox viewpoints to flourish in the classroom but also encouraged students with right-leaning viewpoints to speak up and take a stand.”
Carlos Garcia Perez ’27 said Driver is “a beacon of intellectual curiosity and diversity of thought” who “never presented strawmen nor dismissed out-of-hand classic conservative arguments.” Garcia Perez added that he “will be forever thankful” to Driver “for instilling a presumption of good faith that allowed me and my liberal and conservative classmates to communicate and build bridges and strong friendships.”
In recognition of Driver’s support for open dialogue and debate in the classroom, the Buckley Institute will award him a commemorative plaque and a $10,000 prize during a ceremony this fall at which Driver will give a lecture.
Previous winners of the Lux et Veritas Faculty Prize include lecturers Daniel Schillinger, Gregory Collins, and Mordechai Levy-Eichel and John M. Duff Jr. Professor of Law Amy Chua.
