Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law (Retired)
Gail Heriot is a recently retired law professor from the University of San Diego. She also served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 2007 to 2025. She is also the chairman of the board of the American Civil Rights Project and the chair emerita of the Civil Rights practice group at the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy.
Professor Heriot is a prolific writer in the area of civil rights. She is the author of many law review articles. She is also the editor (along with Maimon Schwarzschild) of the 2021 anthology, A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education. Her upcoming book is entitled, Why We Walk on Eggshell: How Our Civil Rights Laws Helped Bring About the Woke Era—And the Trump Era, Too.
Her writings for a general audience have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the National Review and many other newspapers and magazines.
In 1996, she co-chaired the successful “Yes on Proposition 209” campaign, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit state-sponsored discrimination or preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. In 2020, she co-chaired the “No on Proposition 16” campaign, which successfully prevented Proposition 209’s repeal.
Principal Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Sharon L. Browne is a principal attorney in Pacific Legal Foundation's Individual Rights Practice group. She is an accomplished trial and appellate lawyer. Her practice focuses on litigation at all court levels to prohibit government from utilizing race or sex based discrimination or preferences in public contracting, employment or education. She was actively involved in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County, Ky Board of Education as an amicus and sat second chair during oral argument before the United States Supreme Court to assist the attorney arguing on behalf of Crystal Meredith.
Ms. Browne was named a California Lawyer of the Year in 2004 for her achievements in defending and implementing Proposition 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative, which ended race- and sex- based discrimination and preferences in public contracting, public employment, and public education. A few of her cases include Hi-Voltage Wire Works v. San Jose, 24 Cal. 4th 537 (2000), a unanimous judgment of the California Supreme Court interpreting Proposition 209, the voter approved initiative, which amended the California Constitution to prohibit race- and sex-based discrimination and preferences in public education, public employment, and public education; Crawford v. Huntington Beach Union High School District, 98 Cal. App. 4th 1275 (2002), the first case to apply Proposition 209 to K-12 public education; and C & C Construction v. Sacramento Municipal Utility District, 122 Cal. App. 4th 284 (2004), the first case to interpret Proposition 209's federal funding exception.
Professor of Law and Rouse Chairholder, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Professor Miller holds an Allison and Dorothy Rouse Chair in Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School. An elected member of the American Law Institute and a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute, Professor Miller is also a Fellow and the Co-Director of the Program on Organizations, Business and Markets at the Classical Liberal Institute at the New York University Law School, an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and an Affiliated Scholar at the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding. Prior to joining George Mason University in 2025, Professor Miller was the F. Arnold Daum Chair in Corporate Finance and Law and a Professor of Law at the University of Iowa College of Law, where he had also served as the Associate Dean for Faculty Development.
Professor Miller’s research concerns corporate and securities law, the economic analysis of law, and the philosophy of law. He is particularly interested in applying economic concepts and methods to understand provisions in contracts between sophisticated commercial parties. He has written on material adverse effect clauses under Delaware law, the fiduciary duties of corporate directors, director oversight liability, the history and development of Delaware corporate law, and much more. His articles and working papers are available on his SSRN page.
Professor Miller has been cited by federal and state courts in the United States, including the Delaware Supreme Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery, as well as by the Commercial Court of the United Kingdom and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) in Canada. Additionally, he is a member of the Committee on Mergers, Acquisitions & Corporate Control Contests and a former chair of the Corporation Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association.
Earlier in his career, Professor Miller was a Professor of Law at the Villanova University School of Law and the Associate Director of the Matthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of Free Institutions and the Public Good at Villanova University. He has been a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the Cardozo Law School, and an Olin Fellow in Law and Economics at the Columbia Law School.
Before entering academia, Professor Miller was an associate with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He earned his J.D. from the Yale Law School where he was a Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal and an Olin Fellow in Law, Economics and Public Policy. He earned his M.A. and M.Phil. degrees in philosophy from Columbia University, where he held a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and a Western Civilization Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. He earned his B.A. in philosophy and mathematics from Columbia College.
Barwatch Bulletin -- February 14, 2009
February 14, 2009
Bioethics and the LawSaturday morning featured a roundtable discussion entitled "Hot Topics in Bioethics and...
Barwatch Bulletin -- February 16, 2009
February 16, 2009
House of Delegates Considers RecommendationsThe ABA's House of Delegates met today to vote on recommendations...
The Employee Free Choice Act and the South
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)1 is among the top items on President Obama’s legislative...
Engage Volume 10, Issue 1, February 2009
*Online-Only Issue* CIVIL RIGHTS Lights, Camera, Legislation: Congress Set to Adopt Hate Crimes Bill that...
Lights, Camera, Legislation: Congress Set to Adopt Hate Crimes Bill that May Put Double Jeopardy Protections in Jeopardy
Gail L. Heriot
Americans were horrified by the brutal murders of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas and Matthew...
One Year Later: A Reflection on Parents Involved in Community Schools
Sharon L. Browne
A little more than a year has passed since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its...
A New Era in Federal Preferential Contracting?
George Noue
On Election Day, while the country’s attention was otherwise engaged, the Federal Circuit Court of...
Hexion v. Huntsman: Elaborating the Delaware MAC Standard
Robert T. Miller
In any large corporate acquisition, there is a delay between the time the parties enter...
A Primer on Credit Default Swaps
The recent financial crisis and resulting government bailouts have led many people to search for...
The Unfinished Daubert Revolution
The American judiciary traditionally had a laissez-faire approach toward the admissibility of most categories of...