How Judicial Engagement Replaced Judicial Restraint Among Conservative Constitutionalists

Roger Pilon is the founder and director of Cato’s Center for Constitutional Studies, which has become an important force in the national debate over constitutional interpretation and judicial philosophy. He is the publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review and is an adjunct professor of government at Georgetown University through The Fund for American Studies.

Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at State and Justice, and was a national fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. In 1989, the Bicentennial Commission presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution. In 2001, Columbia University’s School of General Studies awarded him its Alumni Medal of Distinction.  Pilon lectures and debates at universities and law schools across the country and testifies often before Congress.

His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, theWashington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times,Legal Times, National Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Stanford Law and Policy Review, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, CBS’s 60 Minutes II, Fox News Channel, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and other media.

Pilon holds a BA from Columbia University, an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago, and a JD from the George Washington University School of Law.