Keith Whittington

Keith E. Whittington (born July 12, 1968) is an American political scientist and legal scholar. He has been the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University since 2006. In July 2024, he joined the Yale Law School faculty. Whittington's research focuses on American constitutionalism, American political and constitutional history, judicial politics, the presidency, and free speech and the law.

Early life and education
He graduated with a bachelor's degree in government, finance and business at the University of Texas at Austin. He received a master's degree in political science at Yale University, followed by a doctoral degree in 1995.

Academia
Whittington has focused on American constitutionalism, American political and constitutional history, judicial politics, the presidency, and free speech and the law in his scholarship. His work has contributed to increased understanding of originalist thought, political construction of constitutional principles, and the history of political conflict over constitutional meaning.

His teaching career began in 1995, with an assistant professorship at the Catholic University of America. He joined the Princeton University faculty in 1997, and he became the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics in 2006, a professorship endowed for the study of law. He will join the Yale Law School faculty in July 2024. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, the Georgetown University Law Center, and the University of Texas School of Law.

Whittington was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. He is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Other professional activities
He was the founding chair of the Academic Freedom Alliance and serves on its academic committee.

In 2021, Whittington was appointed to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.

He is a blogger at the Volokh Conspiracy and has had works in various media outlets, like The New York Times and The Washington Post.