David Pozen Named Knight Institute Visiting Scholar

Columbia Law School Professor David Pozen will become the inaugural visiting scholar of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. He will be affiliated with the Institute effective immediately through the end of the 2017–2018 academic year.

“David has written originally and insightfully on a range of topics relating to our mission, and his writing on government secrecy, in particular, has been extraordinarily influential,” said Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute’s executive director. “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to support David’s scholarship and look forward to engaging him in all aspects of the Institute’s work.”

The Knight Institute was established last year to defend the freedoms of speech and the press in the digital age. The Institute’s visiting scholars program is meant to bring in exceptionally talented scholars whose work has the potential to influence public debate, public policy, and the law.

Before joining the Law School in 2012, Pozen served as a special assistant to U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee and as a special advisor to Legal Adviser Harold Hongju Koh at the Department of State. He was also a law clerk to Judge Merrick Garland on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and to Justice John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court. An internationally recognized scholar of information law and constitutional law, Pozen has written widely on subjects such as government secrecy, leaks, the Freedom of Information Act, privacy theory, civil disobedience, and the separation of powers. His current academic projects include a study of the changing politics of transparency regulation.

Pozen will work closely with Executive Director Jaffer in developing the Institute’s research program, which aims to enrich public debate and public knowledge on emerging developments and controversies concerning the freedoms of speech, association, and the press. Drawing on the Institute’s location within a world-class university, the research program is expected to generate commentaries and facilitate conversations on especially difficult, significant, or under-analyzed issues in this field.

“I feel humbled to have the opportunity to work with Jameel and his remarkable team,” said Pozen. “The Institute’s mission is critically important, and I’m excited about the challenge of building out a research program that can, in time, become a meaningful contributor to First Amendment debates and a worthy complement to the Institute’s litigation efforts. I also look forward to trying to deepen the Institute’s ties to Columbia Law School and other parts of Columbia University.”

For more information and to read a selection of Pozen’s academic work, please visit: https://knightcolumbia.org/news/knight-institute-announces-david-pozen-serve-inaugural-visiting-scholar

About the Knight Institute

The Knight First Amendment Institute is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization established by Columbia University and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to defend the freedoms of speech and press in the digital age through strategic litigation, research, and public education.

For more information, contact the Knight Institute at [email protected].

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Posted on July 19, 2017