Background

Samuel Marcosson was born on September 23, 1961, in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He is the son of Thomas and Linda Marcosson.

Education

Marcosson graduated from Bradley University in 1983, receiving a Bachelor of Arts ͘in Political Science. In 1986 he got a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School.

Career

After clerking for Judge George C. Pratt on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals from 1986 to 1988, Samuel Marcosson joined the appellate staff at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington, D.C., where he spent the next eight years briefing and arguing cases in the federal courts of appeals. During that time, Marcosson also helped to design and conduct the EEOC's training program for its employees after the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act before it went into effect in 1992. In 1995 Samuel was a visiting professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.

In 1996 he joined the University of Louisville, Brandeis School of Law faculty as an assistant professor (1996-2000), associate professor, (2000-2003), and since 2003 he is Law professor. From 2008 to 2014, Marcosson served on the Coordinating Committee of the Fairness Campaign, Louisville's long-standing LGBT civil rights organization. In 2013, he began serving on the Kentucky State Advisory Committee for the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

In 2002, Professor Marcosson published the book, Original Sin: Clarence Thomas and the Failure of the Constitutional Conservatives. It takes a critical look at the record of the Supreme Court's most conservative members, examining whether they have been consistent in applying their "originalist" method of constitutional interpretation, especially in the landmark case deciding the presidential election of 2000.

From 2004 to 2006, he served as the School of Law's Associate Dean for Student Life. From 2005 through 2011-2012, Marcosson chaired the law school's Admissions Committee. Marcosson teaches Constitutional Law, Sexual Orientation and the Law, Employment Discrimination, and Criminal Law.

Achievements

• Samuel A. Marcosson is an outstanding and prolific lawyer, educator, and author. In 2009 he received Distinguished Faculty Award from the University of Louisville. Marcosson was named the LGBT Center's Faculty/Staff Ally Award winner in 2015. He has been listed as a reputable lawyer by Martindale-Hubbell.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Original Sin: Clarence Thomas and the Failure of the Constitutional Conservatives

    (Originalism is the practice of reviewing constitutional c...)

    2002

Religion

Marcosson is a Judaist.

Views

Marcosson's research and writing have concentrated on constitutional law (especially the Fourteenth Amendment), and the civil rights issues facing lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people. Throughout his legal and academic career, Marcosson has argued against a legal doctrine that has come to be known as "originalism." This theory holds that the only legitimate basis for constitutional interpretation is the original intent of the framers and that Supreme Court Justices and appellate justices had unjustly expanded government powers and invented constitutional rights, often in the kinds of cases brought by agencies like the EEOC and organizations like the National Lesbian & Gay Law Association.

For Marcosson, originalists like Justice Thomas and his mentor, Justice Antonin Scalia, suffer from the very tendencies they criticize in their opponents: self-interested reasoning, a tendency to bend the law to political ends, and vagueness that makes their rulings unpredictable and often arbitrary. Marcosson seeks an alternative doctrine, "legitimation," by which the Court would seek out the "original sins" in the Constitution and seek to remove them.

Membership

Samuel has served on the Board of Directors of the National Lesbian and Gay Legal Association (present-day National LGBT Bar Association) and was the programming coordinator for its annual conference in 1998.

• 

  National LGBT Bar Association , United States

Connections

Father:

Thomas Marcosson

Mother:

Linda Marcosson