Biography:
A.B., Princeton University
M.A., University of California, San Diego
Ph.D., University of California, San Diego
Professor Bybee is the Paul E. and Hon. Joanne F. Alper ’72 Judiciary Studies Professor at the College of Law. He holds tenured appointments in the College of Law and in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He also directs the Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media (IJPM), a collaborative effort between the College of Law, the Maxwell School, and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Bybee's areas of research interest are the judicial process, legal theory, political philosophy, LGBT politics, the politics of race and ethnicity, American politics, constitutional law, and the media. His books include Mistaken Identity: The Supreme Court and the Politics of Minority Representation (Princeton, 1998; second printing, 2002), Bench Press: The Collision of Courts, Politics, and the Media, (Stanford, 2007), and All Judges Are Political - Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies and the Rule of Law (Stanford, 2010).
Publications:
Books:
All Judges Are Political – Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies and the
Rule of Law. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010.
Bench Press: The Collision of Courts, Politics, and the Media. Edited volume.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007.
Mistaken Identity: The Supreme Court and the Politics of Minority Representation, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Second printing, 2002.
Articles, Book Chapters, and Critical Essays:
“The Rule of Law is Dead! Long Live the Rule of Law!,” in What’s Law Got To Do With It? What Judges Do, Why They Do It, and What's at Stake, Charles Gardner Geyh, ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, forthcoming in 2011).
Will the Real Elena Kagan Please Stand up? Conflicting Public Images in the
Supreme Court Confirmation Process, 1 Wake Forest Journal of
Law and Policy 137 (2011).
“Efficient, Fair, and Incomprehensible: How the State ‘Sells’ its Judiciary,” Law & Policy 33(2011): 1-26. Co-authored with Heather Pincock.
“Legalizing Public Reason: The American Dream, Same-Sex Marriage, and the
Management of Radical Disputes,” Studies in Law, Politics, and Society
49(2009): 125-56. Co-authored with Cyril Ghosh.
“The Polite Thing To Do,” in The Future of Gay Rights in America, H.N. Hirsch, ed. (New York: Routledge, 2005): 297-302.
“Legal Realism, Common Courtesy, and Hypocrisy,” Law, Culture, and the Humanities
1(2005): 75-102.
“The Liberal Arts, Legal Scholarship, and the Democratic Critique of Judicial Power,” in Legal Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, Austin Sarat, ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004): 41-68.
“The Jurisprudence of Uncertainty,” Law & Society Review 35 (2001): 501-14.
“The Political Significance of Legal Ambiguity: The Case of Affirmative Action,” Law
& Society Review 34 (2000): 263-90.
“Democratic Theory and Race-Conscious Redistricting: The Supreme Court Constructs the American Voter,” in The Supreme Court in American Politics: New Institutionalist Approaches, Howard Gillman and Cornell W. Clayton, eds. (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1999): 219-34.
“Splitting the Difference: The Representation of Ideas and Identities in Modern
Democracy,” Law and Social Inquiry 22 (1997): 389-403.
“Essentially Contested Membership: Racial Minorities and the Politics of Inclusion,”
Legal Studies Forum 21 (1997): 469-83.
Edited Symposia:
“The Importance of Judicial Appearances: A Symposium on Law, Politics, and the
Media,” Syracuse Law Review (2009): 361-469.
“Creators vs. Consumers: The Rhetoric, Reality and Reformation of Intellectual Property
Law and Policy,” Syracuse Law Review (2008): 427-546.
Symposium on “Queer (Theory) Eye for the Straight (Legal) Guy,” by Susan Burgess,
Political Research Quarterly (September 2006): 401-18.
“Citizenship At Home and Abroad: A Symposium,” International Studies Review 7 (2005): 503-524.
Reviews, Commentaries, and Other Publications:
“Politics or Impartiality in the Courtroom?,” Washington Post, January 3, 2011.
Available at Political Bookworm, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political- bookworm/2011/01/politics_or_impartiality_in_th.html.
“Judicial Ethics: Appearances Still Matter ,” Jurist, October 18, 2010. Available at http://jurist.org/forum/2010/10/judicial-ethics-appearances-still-matter.php.
“Kagan Delay Hypocrisy,” Washington Post, July14, 2010. Available at Political Bookworm, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political- bookworm/2010/07/kagan_delay_hypocrisy.html#more.
“Kagan’s Confirmation: Conflicting Imagery,” Jurist, June 28, 2010. Available at http://jurist.org/forum/2010/06/kagans-confirmation-conflicting-imagery.php.
The Lost Promise of Civil Rights, Risa L. Goluboff, Law and Politics Book Review 17 (August 2007): 659-662.
“The Media’s Role In Selecting Impartial Justices,” Public Eye CBSNews.com, October
27, 2006. Available at http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500486_162-2130543-
500486.html.
The Gift of Science: Leibniz and the Modern Legal Tradition, Roger Berkowitz, Law and
Politics Book Review 16 (August 2006): 608-611.
“All Judges Are Political Actors – Except When They Aren’t,” Knight Ridder/Tribune, December 14, 2005. Co-authored with Jeffrey Stonecash. Available at http://www1.maxwell.syr.edu/campbell/programs/The_Maxwell_Poll/.
“How Would You Know a Virtuous Citizen If You Saw One?,” in Constructing Civic Virtue: A Symposium on the State of American Citizenship, Syracuse, NY: Campbell Public Affairs Institute, The Maxwell School of Syracuse University,
2003. Re-printed in International Journal of Public Administration 30 (2007):
683-86.
The Political Use of Racial Narratives: School Desegregation in Mobile, Alabama,
1954-97, Richard A. Pride, Law and Politics Book Review 14 (June 2004): 393-
95.
Race and Redistricting: The Shaw-Cromartie Cases, Tinsley E. Yarbrough, Law and
Politics Book Review 13 (January 2003).
Freedom and Time: A Theory of Constitutional Self-Government, Jed Rubenfeld,
Journal of Politics 64 (February 2002): 270-2.
American Legal Thought from Premodernism to Postmodernism, Stephen M. Feldman,
Law and Politics Book Review 10 (April 2000): 287-90.
Race and Redistricting in the 1990s, Bernard Grofman (ed.), Law and Politics Book
Review 6 (June 1999): 236-38.
To Secure These Rights: The Declaration of Independence and Constitutional
Interpretation, Scott Douglas Gerber, Political Science Quarterly 111 (Summer
1996): 375-6.
The Rooster’s Egg: On the Persistence of Prejudice, Patricia J. Williams, Law and
Politics Book Review 4 (April 1996): 68-70.
Works-in-progress:
“The Supreme Court: An Autobiography.” Co-authored with Angela Narasimhan.
“Judicial Decision Making: New Directions.” In preparation for publication in Volume 8 of Annual Review of Law and Social Science.
Law Library
