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FOUNDING FATHERS,
MEET MS. SULLIVAN

By Elaine Ray

t’s not hard to imagine Kathleen Sullivan in the company of Federalist writers Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. The pleasantly imposing 41-year-old feminist in no-nonsense suit and pearls would no doubt turn a few heads in a sea of 18th-century landowners in cravats and waistcoats. The turgid prose of the framers would stand in stark contrast to the Stanford law professor’s straightforward style. But if she can charm the most somber members of the Rehnquist Court, Sullivan no doubt would impress the participants at the Constitutional Convention.

Few in America know their Constitution as well as Sullivan does. She can bring it to life in any forum for almost any audience; break it down for TV viewers or newspaper readers; discuss its finer points in law review articles or explain it to first- and second-year law students. While many scholars struggle with the tensions between teaching and research, Sullivan seems to strike the perfect balance.

“She has it both ways,” says Paul Brest, dean of the law school. “She’s a significant theorist who takes the theory and applies it to practice. The students benefit enormously from those qualities.”

“The easier thing to say is that she is the most brilliant analyst and best teacher of her age group,” says Professor Emeritus Gerald Gunther, who literally wrote the book on constitutional law. “She’s certainly the most brilliant analyst and the best teacher in the field, period.”

It is no surprise then that when the Twentieth Century Fund was considering writers for The New Federalist Papers: Essays in Defense of the Constitution, Kathleen Sullivan’s name kept coming up. The book,

Kathleen Sullivan (Plain text) Kathleen Sullivan (Adobe Acrobat format - 55k)

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