Adrian Vermeule

Adrian Vermeule is the Ralph S. Tyler, Jr. Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. He works on constitutional law, administrative law and institutional design, and became a figure in online legal and political argument through his writing on what he calls common-good constitutionalism.

Academic Career

Vermeule took his undergraduate degree at Harvard College in 1990 and his law degree at Harvard Law School in 1993. He was the Bernard D. Meltzer Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School before joining the Harvard Law School faculty, where he holds the Tyler chair. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. Harvard describes him as the author or co-author of nine books, among them Law’s Abnegation: From Law’s Empire to the Administrative State (2016), The Constitution of Risk (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and The System of the Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2011).

”Beyond Originalism” (2020)

In March 2020 The Atlantic published Vermeule’s essay “Beyond Originalism”, subtitled “The dominant conservative philosophy for interpreting the Constitution has served its purpose, and scholars ought to develop a more moral framework.” The essay opens by observing that “allegiance to the constitutional theory known as originalism has become all but mandatory for American legal conservatives,” and argues that originalism has outlived its usefulness and should give way to an interpretive framework oriented to the common good. He developed the argument at book length in Common Good Constitutionalism, published in 2022.

The essay drew response from legal scholars and commentators, including from other originalists. This page does not characterize those responses; the essay itself is the citable object.

Administrative Conference of the United States

On July 24, 2020, the White House announced Vermeule’s appointment, alongside Jennifer B. Dickey and Roger Thomas Severino, to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States — a body, appointed by the President, that governs the federal agency responsible for administrative-law recommendations. Council members serve three-year terms.

Relevance to This Site

Vermeule appears here as an academic whose work moved from law reviews into general political argument through a single magazine essay and a social-media presence, which is the pattern this site tracks. Characterizations of his religious or political commitments that circulate in commentary are not restated here, because the citation audit found no source for them that met this project’s standard; his own published work is what is described above.