Expertise

Civil rights law; constitutional law; federal courts; habeas corpus; Catholic social teaching

At the Keough School

Jennifer Mason McAward is director of the Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. As director of one of the Keough School’s nine international academic units, she is a member of the Keough School’s Leadership Council.

Biography

Mason McAward is an associate professor of law at Notre Dame. Her teaching and research interests focus on civil rights, constitutional law, and habeas corpus. Her scholarship considers how government institutions and actors promote individual constitutional rights. She has researched the power of Congress to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment and has studied the United States Commission on Civil Rights, focusing on the role of Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. in advancing civil rights reforms. Her current research focuses on how judicial and executive actors can incentivize police and prosecutors to respect the pre-trial due process rights of criminal defendants.

McAward joined the law school faculty in 2005 and was named Distinguished Professor of the Year in 2007. She earned her JD summa cum laude in 1998 from New York University School of Law, where she was managing editor of the law review. She graduated summa cum laude from Notre Dame in 1994, majoring in government and earning a minor in theology.

Following law school, McAward clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski on the Ninth Circuit and then for United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. She practiced law and completed a public service fellowship with Holland & Knight LLP in Washington, DC.

In the Media

• What students can expect after Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action (USA Today)
• Notre Dame profs wary of affirmative action ban as potential admissions changes loom (South Bend Tribune)
• With affirmative action gone, California shows what may come next (Christian Science Monitor)
• Legal experts say affirmative action ruling reverses decades of precedent (WISH TV)

News

• The gist: affirmative response (Notre Dame Magazine)