Kent Greenfield is Professor of Law and the Dr. Thomas F. Carney Distinguished Scholar at Boston College Law School. His scholarship and public work focus on constitutional law, democratic institutions, the First Amendment, corporate power, and the ways law can respond to deep political and social division.
Greenfield’s forthcoming book, Secession: Why Our Country Should Split Up (and How to Do It Peacefully) will be published by Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, in January 2027. The book examines whether the United States’ increasingly profound political divisions might ultimately require a negotiated, democratic, and peaceful restructuring of the country.
Greenfield is the author of three previous books: Corporations Are People Too (And They Should Act Like It), The Myth of Choice: Personal Responsibility in a World of Limits, and The Failure of Corporate Law: Fundamental Flaws and Progressive Possibilities. He is also the chief editor and principal author of the two Supreme Court volumes of Moore’s Federal Practice and the author of online casebooks in constitutional law and the First Amendment. His scholarly articles have appeared in the Yale Law Journal, The Supreme Court Review, the Virginia Law Review, and numerous other leading journals.
A frequent commentator on constitutional law, the Supreme Court, democracy, and corporate responsibility, Greenfield has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Al Jazeera, Fox, PBS, and other national and international outlets. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, USA Today, Slate, SCOTUSblog, Boston Globe, American Prospect, Salon, and The Nation.
Greenfield has also been active in litigation involving civil rights, constitutional law, and corporate accountability. He founded and served as president of the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, the plaintiff in Rumsfeld v. FAIR, which challenged the federal government’s requirement that law schools assist military recruiters despite the military’s then-existing exclusion of openly gay and lesbian service members.
Greenfield has authored, co-authored, or joined Supreme Court briefs in numerous cases including Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 303 Creative v. Elenis, Trump v. Anderson, Moyle v. United States, and West Virginia v. B.P.J. Those briefs addressed the ability of corporations to use religious and speech claims to discriminate against LGBTQ customers, the First Amendment and January 6, the ability of states to reject federal emergency-care requirements, and the rights of transgender students in school athletics.
His corporate accountability work has included matters involving alleged human-rights violations in Burma and West Africa. In February 2025, Greenfield authored the “Statement of Law Professors: We are in a Constitutional Crisis,” which gained over 1000 signatures and was translated into French and Spanish and circulated internationally.
Greenfield is an elected member of the American Law Institute and has received six teaching awards while at Boston College. He has lectured at approximately 140 institutions in 44 states and twelve countries. A graduate of Brown University and the University of Chicago Law School, he clerked for Judge Levin H. Campbell of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and Justice David H. Souter of the United States Supreme Court. Before entering teaching, he practiced law at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.
RECENT MEDIA & APPEARANCES
