 | Associate Professor of Law besimone@syr.edu |
Blakely Evanthia Simoneau is an Associate Professor of Law and will teach Education Law and Constitutional Criminal Procedure.
Simoneau’s research sits at the intersection of education law, constitutional law, criminal law, and civil rights. Her scholarship focuses on the rights of students in public schools, with particular attention to the state’s role as educator and the constitutional and statutory frameworks governing that role. Her work often explores how law can contribute to – or address – educational inequity.
Her recent scholarship examines student speech, disability rights in schools, and the constitutional implications of school-based discipline and has appeared or is forthcoming in the Missouri Law Review, the Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, and the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change, among others. She is also co-authoring Understanding: Special Education Law, a forthcoming treatise with Carolina Academic Press. Her work has been presented at national conferences, colloquia, and symposia. She also provides national training on special education law, including for the Practicing Law Institute’s School Law Institute, the National Academy for IDEA Administrative Law Judges and Impartial Hearing Officers, and statewide continuing legal education programs for impartial hearing officers.
Prior to joining Syracuse Law, Simoneau served as an Acting Assistant Professor in the Lawyering Program at New York University School of Law. Before entering full-time teaching, she practiced for over a decade representing schools and litigating matters in federal, state, and administrative law courts involving education law, disability law, and criminal law.
Simoneau received a J.D. from Boston University School of Law and a B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Colorado. She is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, Maine (inactive status), the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine.