Jay Wexler Biography
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| Jay Wexler |
B.A., magna cum laude, Harvard University
M.A., University of Chicago Divinity School
J.D., Stanford Law School
Interests: law and religion; administrative law; constitutional law; environmental law; natural resources law
Before going to law school, Jay Wexler studied religion at the University of Chicago. “I’ve always been fascinated by religion, so it was natural that I would continue to be interested in the subject after studying law,” he says. “I like to think and write not only about how the law ought to treat religious beliefs and practice, but also about what role religion should play in the legal process. I’m particularly interested in how public schools ought to treat religion, and my goal is to articulate a balanced position that respects both the importance of religion to individual believers and the rights of non-believers to be free of religious indoctrination and endorsement by the state.”
A member of the School of Law faculty since fall 2001, Professor Wexler teaches law and religion, administrative law, environmental law and natural resources law. He has published articles, essays and book reviews on these topics in publications such as the Georgetown Law Journal, the Vanderbilt Law Review, the George Washington Law Review, the William and Mary Law Review and the Washington University Law Review. He is currently writing a book, under contract with Beacon Press tentatively entitled Free Exercise, Expensive Gas: A Church State Road Trip, which involves traveling to various places in the United States where prominent church-state controversies and cases have originated.
In recent years, Professor Wexler’s interests have turned more international in scope. He has spoken (or will soon speak) at conferences on law and religion in Norway and Vietnam, and he will be spending the spring of 2008 teaching on a Fulbright award at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Before law school, Professor Wexler lived in Hong Kong, Japan, mainland China and Taiwan.
Prior to coming to BU Law, Professor Wexler clerked for Judge David Tatel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court. He also spent two years as an attorney-advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice, advising components of the Justice Department and other executive branch actors on statutory and constitutional issues. For fun, he sometimes writes short stories and humor pieces for places like McSweeney’s. His 2005 study of Supreme Court oral argument humor was the subject of a front page article in the New York Times and a segment on ABC’s Nightline, but it has not resulted in funnier jokes being told from the bench.
