Congratulations to NIU Law Professor Greg Elinson, who has been selected to present his paper, “Reviving a Liberal Theory of Presidential Power,” at the prestigious Harvard/Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum this June! Each year, only about 20 junior faculty members nationwide are chosen through a blind review process by scholars at all three institutions—aimed at fostering rich academic dialogue, uplifting diverse perspectives, and building strong connections in the legal academy.
According to Professor Elinson, “the article traces the left’s embrace and subsequent rejection of an expansive vision of presidential power, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and ending in our current moment… The article then evaluates the political and legal consequences of liberals’ lingering distaste for presidentialism. The conditions that prompted them to embrace administrative independence—most importantly, the security of Democratic majorities in Congress and a robust commitment to proceduralism—no longer obtain.”
Professor Elinson is a public law scholar with wide-ranging interests in constitutional and administrative law and legislative and judicial procedure. Before coming to NIU Law in 2022, Professor Elinson was a Climenko Fellow at Harvard Law School and an associate in Kirkland & Ellis’s Chicago office, where his practice focused on commercial and appellate litigation. He also clerked for Judge David Barron on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and Judge Gary Feinerman on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. from Harvard College.
