Academic Faculty
Full Time Teaching Faculty
Genevieve Lakier
Professor of Law, Herbert and Marjorie Fried Teaching ScholarBiography
Genevieve Lakier teaches and writes about freedom of speech and American constitutional law. Her work examines the changing meaning of freedom of speech in the United States, the role that legislatures play in safeguarding free speech values, and the fight over freedom of speech on the social media platforms.
Genevieve has an AB from Princeton University, a JD from New York University School of Law, and an MA and PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Between 2006 and 2008, she was an Academy Scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International and Area Studies at Harvard University. After law school, she clerked for Judge Leonard B. Sand of the Southern District of New York and Judge Martha C. Daughtrey of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Before joining the faculty, Genevieve taught at the Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law.
Education
The University of Chicago
PhD, Anthropology, 2014
MA, Anthropology, 2001
New York University School of Law
JD, cum laude, 2011
Princeton University
AB, Anthropology, 1997
Experience
The University of Chicago Law School
Professor of Law, July 2021-present
Herbert & Marjorie Fried Teaching Scholar, 2021-present
Assistant Professor of Law, July 2015-June 2021
Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law, 2013-2015
Knight Institute at Columbia
Senior Visiting Research Scholar, 2021-2022
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Clerk, The Hon. Martha Craig Daughtrey, 2012-2013
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
Clerk, The Hon. Leonard B. Sand, 2011-2012
Publications
Journal Articles
- "LOCHNER.COM?," 138 Harvard Law Review __ (2024) (with Evelyn Douek). www
- "Lies and the Law: An Introduction," 4 Journal of Free Speech Law 365 (2024). www
- "Falsely Shouting Fire," 4 Journal of Free Speech Law 747 (2024) (with Evelyn Douek). www
- "Comment," 51 Hofstra Law Review 679 (2023). www
- "A Counter-History of First Amendment Neutrality," 131 Yale Law Journal Forum 873 (2022). www
- "The Non-First Amendment Law of Speech," 134 Harvard Law Review 2299 (2021). ssrn www
- "The First Amendment's Real Lochner Problem," 87 University of Chicago Law Review 1241 (2020). ssrn www
- "Imagining an Antisubordinating First Amendment," 118 Columbia Law Review 2117 (2019). cu
- "Not Such a Fixed Star After All: West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, and the Changing Meaning of the First Amendment Right Not To Speak," 13 FIU Law Review 741 (2019).
- "Apparent Fault," 131 Harvard Law Review 1525 (2018) (with Aziz Z. Huq). ssrn cu
- "Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona, and the Rise of the Anti-Classificatory First Amendment," 2016 Supreme Court Review 233 (2017). ssrn cu
- "The Invention of Low-Value Speech," 128 Harvard Law Review 1 (2015). ssrn cu
- "Sport as Speech," 16 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 1109 (2014). cu
- "'To Regulate,' Not 'To Prohibit': Limiting the Commerce Power," 2012 Supreme Court Review 255 (2012) (with Barry Friedman). cu
- Comment, "From Page to Practice: Corporations as Progressive Actors," 36 New York University Review of Law and Social Change 145 (2012) (with Amalea Smirniotopoulos). cu
- "Book Review (reviewing Ali Riaz & Subho Basu, Paradise Lost: State Failure in Nepal (2007))," 67 Journal of Asian Studies 1494 (2008). cu www
- "The Myth of the State is Real: Notes on the Study of the State in Nepal," 10 Studies in Nepali History & Society 135 (2005). cu
Book Sections
- "The Limits of Antidiscrimination Law in the Digital Public Sphere," in Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of our Democracy, Lee C. Bollinger & Geoffrey R. Stone eds. (Oxford University Press, 2022). www
- "The Problem Isn’t the Use of Analogies but the Analogies Courts Use," in The Perilous Public Square: Structural Threats to Free Expression Today, David E. Pozen ed. (Columbia University Press, 2020). www
- "After the Massacre: Secrecy, Disbelief, and the Public Sphere in Nepal," in Censorship in South Asia: Cultural Regulation From Sedition to Seduction, William Mazzarella & Raminder Kuar eds. (Indiana University Press, 2009). cu
- "Illiberal Democracy and the Problem of Law: Street Protest and Democratization in Multiparty Nepal," in Contentious Politics and Democratization in Nepal, Mahendra Lawoti ed. (Sage Publications, 2007). cu
Other Publications
- "The Hypocrisy Underlying the Campus-Speech Controversy," The Atlantic, December 20, 2023 (with Evelyn Douek). www
- "The Supreme Court Seems Poised to Decide an Imaginary Case," The Atlantic, April 2023 (with Evelyn Douek). www
- "The Amendment the Court Forgot in Twitter v. Taamneh," Harvard Law Review Blog, March 1, 2023 (with Evelyn Douek). www
- "What Are Networks, Platforms, and Utilities and What Should We Do with Them?," Yale Journal on Regulation: Notice & Comment, January 24, 2023 (with Joshua C. Macey). www
- "Rereading "Editorial Discretion"," Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University Blog, October 24, 2022 (with Evelyn Douek). www
- "Rereading Schenck v. United States," Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University Blog, July 7, 2022 (with Evelyn Douek). www
- "Rereading Bluman v. Federal Election Commission," Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University Blog, June 23, 2022 (with Evelyn Douek). www
- "First Amendment Politics Gets Weird: Public and Private Platform Reform and the Breakdown of the Laissez-Faire Free Speech Consensus," University of Chicago Law Review Online, June 6, 2022 (with Evelyn Douek). www
- "Rereading Herbert v. Lando," Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University Blog, May 26, 2022 (with Evelyn Douek). www
- "Rereading Alvarez," Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University Blog, May 18, 2022 (with Evelyn Douek). www
- "Rereading the First Amendment," Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University Blog, May 18, 2022 (with Evelyn Douek). www
- "Is the Legal Standard for Libel Outdated? Sarah Palin Could Help Answer.," The Washington Post, February 3, 2022. www
- "Informal Government Coercion and The Problem of "Jawboning"," Lawfare, July 26, 2021. www
- "After the “Great Deplatforming”: Reconsidering the Shape of the First Amendment," Law and Political Economy Project, March 1, 2021 (with Nelson Tebbe). www
- "The Great Free-Speech Reversal," The Atlantic, January 2021.
- "The Court, the Constitution, and the Deplatforming of Trump," Slate, January 2021 (with Sonja West). www
- The Limits of Antimonopoly Law as a Solution to the Problems of the Platform Public Sphere, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. March 30, 2020 www
- "The Problem Isn't the Use of Analogies but the Analogies Courts Use," Knight First Amendment Institute's Emerging Threats, March 1, 2018. www
- "The Potential Silver Lining in Trump’s Travel Ban," Washington Post, July 5, 2017 (with Adam Chilton). www
Honors and Awards
- Faculty Hooder 2022 and 2023
- Teaching Award, 2023
- Class Award 2022
Fellowships and Grants
- Furman Academic Scholarship, NYU Law School (2008-2011)
- Academy Fellowship, Weatherhead Center for International & Area Studies, Harvard University (2006-2008)
- Josephine de Karman Write-up Fellowship (2005-2006)
- Fulbright Hays DDRA Research Fellowship (2003-2004)
- Fulbright IIE (declined, 2003-2004)
- National Science Foundation Scholar (1999-2003)
- University of Chicago Unendowed Fellowship (1998-1999)