Associate Professor Jennifer Breen received a 2022-23 Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Teaching Recognition Award for Early Performance in recognition of her excellence in teaching.
She was “selected for this award upon the recommendation of a committee of Meredith Professors, Teaching Recognition Awardees, and student representatives.”
Professor Breen teaches Constitutional law, administrative law, and labor law. Her interdisciplinary scholarship is centrally concerned with democratic governance in the United States and pays particular attention to the roles of gender and labor politics.
She has recently completed or is working on several new articles:
- “Democratic Erosion and the United States Supreme Court” (forthcoming Utah Law Review, spring 2024) This article is the first to employ its novel approach to the examination of democratic erosion in the United States by adopting a comprehensive method from the comparative political literature. Through the identification of four key areas for studies of democratic erosion — electoral rules, executive aggrandizement, income inequality, and speech rights — and examination of how the Supreme Court has intervened in each area between the 2016 and 2021 terms, this article is able to provide a new perspective on the Court’s role in democratic erosion.
- “Democracy, Republicanism, and the Roberts Court” (work in progress). This project examines Supreme Court opinions issued by the Roberts Court with the goal of understanding how the members of the Court understand the concepts of “democracy” and “republicanism.” How do different Justices define these key ideas? What roles do they see for themselves in promoting (or impeding) these foundational tenets of representative government in the United States?
- “Labor Unions and Public Health Outreach” (with Gretchen Purser, Syracuse University Associate Professor of Sociology). This project examines the roles played by labor unions in public health campaigns during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professorships for Teaching Excellence were created in 1995 to recognize and reward outstanding teaching among faculty. In 2001, the Meredith Professorship Program was expanded to recognize teaching excellence by non-tenured faculty and adjunct and part-time instructors. Awards are given in two categories: Early Performance and Continuing Excellence.
