Thomas M. Keck

Thomas M. Keck is an American political scientist and constitutional law scholar. He is the Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics and professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

Education

Keck received his B.A. in politics with a minor in law and society from Oberlin College in 1992. He earned his M.A. in 1996 and Ph.D. in 1999 in political science from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Academic career

Keck began his academic career at the University of Oklahoma, where he served as an assistant professor of political science from 1999 to 2002.

In 2002, he joined the faculty of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He was promoted to associate professor in 2008 and full professor in 2016. Since 2009, he has held the endowed position of Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics. He served as the chair of the Department of Political Science from 2011 to 2014.

Honors

• Houghton Mifflin Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association (2008)
• Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award, Syracuse University (2016)
• Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, Carnegie Corporation of New York (2019)
• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2024)

Selected works

Books

• The Most Activist Supreme Court in History: The Road to Modern Judicial Conservatism. University of Chicago Press, 2004.
• Judicial Politics in Polarized Times. University of Chicago Press, 2014.

Articles

• “Party, Policy, or Duty: Why Does the Supreme Court Invalidate Federal Statutes?” American Political Science Review, 2007.
• “Beyond Backlash: Assessing the Impact of Judicial Decisions on LGBT Rights.” Law and Society Review, 2009.
• “Free Speech in an Age of Democratic Backsliding.” International Journal of Constitutional Law, 2023.
• “The U.S. Supreme Court and Democratic Backsliding.” Law & Policy, 2024.