Draft:Jon D. Michaels

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Jon D. Michaels
Born1975 or 1976 (age 49–50)
Long Island, New York, U.S.
EducationWilliams College (BA)
Worcester College, Oxford (BA, MA)
Yale University (JD)
AwardsCudahy Award (2010, 2016)
Academic career
DisciplineConstitutional law
Administrative law
National security law
Public policy
Institutions

Jon Douglas Michaels (born 1975 or 1976)[1] is an American legal scholar who serves as Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law. He is a scholar of constitutional law, administrative law, national security law, and public policy.[2]

Life and career

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Michaels was born and raised on Long Island, New York.[3] His mother was a kindergarten teacher in Jericho, New York. His father was a pharmacist in Flushing, Queens.[1] Michaels graduated summa cum laude from Williams Collegewith a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Political Science in 1998; while at Williams, he earned a Harry S. Truman Scholarship.[2][3][4] He then studied at Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar, earning a Bachelors in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics in 2000 and a Masters in 2006.[5][2][3][1] In 2003, he graduated with a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, where he also served as an Articles Editor for the Yale Law Journal.[2][6]

From 2004 to 2005, Michaels served as a law clerk to Judge Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then served as a law clerk to Justice David Souter of the United States Supreme Court from 2005 to 2006.[1][2][3] Following his clerkships, Michaels worked for the international law firm of Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC as an associate in the National Security Law and Public Policy Group.[2]

Michaels joined the UCLA School of Law as an assistant professor in 2008. In 2013, he was awarded full tenure at UCLA.[2] Michaels teaches courses on administrative law and national security law.[2]

Michaels is an elected member of the American Law Institute.[7] The American Constitution Society has twice awarded Michaels with the Cudahy Award for scholarly excellence in regulatory and administrative law[8] — first in 2010 for his article "Privatization's Pretensions," on policymakers' use of privatization to substantively alter policies,[9] and again in 2016 for his article "An Enduring, Evolving Separation of Powers."[10] The Columbia Law Review published responses to the latter article by Professor Cristina Rodríguez and Professor David Fontana.[11][12] Responding in the Harvard Law Review to a related article by Michaels, "Running Government Like a Business . . . Then and Now," Professor Nicholas Parrillo wrote that Michaels "makes a powerful argument" that salarization, civil service protection, and citizen participation rights "have been key to the emergence of an effective, legitimate, and meaningfully democratic government in the United States."[13]

Michaels' first book, Constitutional Coup: Privatization's Threat to the American Republic, was published by the Harvard University Press in 2017.[2] In 2018, the Yale Journal on Regulation held a web symposium on the book, featuring commentary from noted administrative law scholars, including Christopher Walker, Emily Bremer, and Aaron Nielson, who would go on to serve as Solicitor General of Texas.[14][15][16][17] In Nielson's review, he stated that while he and Michaels disagreed on "many things[,]" he believed Michaels was "quite right that pretend privatization is a problem" — referring to "situations in which the government tries to avoid being labeled as the government, even though it still wants to exercise the powers of government," such as the example of Amtrak in Department of Transportation v. Association of American Railroads.[17][18][19] In future-Third Circuit nominee Jennifer Mascott's review, she complimented Michaels' book for being "engaging, brilliantly written, and insightful" but concluded that his "administrative separation of powers" proposal was "at odds with, and fundamentally undermines, the constitutionally mandated separation of powers already in place."[20] The symposium additionally featured reviews by academics Jeffrey Pojanowski, Miriam Seifter, Sam Halabi, and Daniel Hemel.[21][22][23][24] Pojanowski also reviewed the book in the Michigan Law Review.[25] In a review published by the Harvard Law Review, Professor Sabeel Rahman wrote that Constitutional Coup was an "important work" that defended the administrative state "as a central pillar of our modern constitutional structure that is increasingly under threat."[26] In a Washington Monthly book review, Joshua Alvarez wrote that Michaels "provides a useful reframing of what business-like government really means."[27]

Michaels' second book, Vigilante Nation: How State-Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy, was co-authored by David Noll and published by Atria/One Signal, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in 2024.[28][29] The book concerns right-wing violence and authoritarianism in the United States, and proposes legal responses by Democratic-majority states.[28][30]

Michaels has provided legal analysis for the New York Times,[31][32] Washington Post,[33][34] Los Angeles Times,[35][36][37][38] Time magazine,[39] Foreign Affairs,[40][41] CNN,[42] and the Boston Globe.[43][44]

Publications

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Books

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  • Michaels, Jon D. (2017). Constitutional Coup: Privatization's Threat to the American Republic. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
  • —; Noll, David. (2024). Vigilante Nation: How State-Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy. New York: Atria/One Signal Publishers.

Selected articles

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Toni Moore and Jon Michaels (Published 2005)". 2005-08-21. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Michaels, Jon | UCLA Law". law.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  3. ^ a b c d "Bio & CV – Jon Michaels". Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  4. ^ "Scholar Listing | The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation". www.truman.gov. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  5. ^ "Marshall Scholar Alumni by Year from Association of Marshall Scholars". Association of Marshall Scholars. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  6. ^ "The Yale Law Journal - Masthead: Volume 112". www.yalelawjournal.org. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  7. ^ "Jon D. Michaels | The American Law Institute". www.ali.org. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  8. ^ "The Richard D. Cudahy Writing Competition on Regulatory and Administrative Law | Past Competition Winners and Judges". 2015-06-16. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  9. ^ Michaels, Jon D. (2010-03-01). "Privatization's Pretensions". University of Chicago Law Review. 77 (2). ISSN 0041-9494.
  10. ^ Michaels, Jon D. "AN ENDURING, EVOLVING SEPARATION OF POWERS". Columbia Law Review. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  11. ^ Rodríguez, Cristina M. (December 30, 2015). "Complexity as Constraint". Columbia Law Review. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  12. ^ Fontana, David (May 31, 2016). "The Administrative Difference of Powers?". Columbia Law Review. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  13. ^ Parrillo, Nicholas R. (February 2015). "The Salary Revolution and the Marks of Government's Distinctness: A Response to Jon Michaels". Harvard Law Review. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  14. ^ "Symposium of Jon D. Michael's Constitutional Coup Archives". Yale Journal on Regulation. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  15. ^ Walker, Christopher J. (March 6, 2018). "That One Time I Agreed with Ian Millhiser (on Constitutional Law, No Less!)". Yale Journal on Regulation. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  16. ^ Bremer, Emily (March 9, 2018). "Deliberate and Serendipitous Separation of Powers in the Administrative State". Yale Journal on Regulation. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  17. ^ a b Nielson, Aaron L. (March 5, 2018). "Pretend Privatization". Yale Journal on Regulation. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  18. ^ "Dep't of Transp. v. Ass'n of Am. Railroads, 575 U.S. 43 (2015)". Justia Law. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  19. ^ "Assoc. of American Railroads v. Department of Transportation, No. 12-5204 (D.C. Cir. 2016)". Justia Law. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  20. ^ Mascott, Jennifer (March 9, 2018). "The Alternative Separation of Powers in Constitutional Coup". Yale Journal on Regulation. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  21. ^ Pojanowski, Jeffrey (March 8, 2018). "Anti-Privatization as a Second-Best Strategy". Yale Journal on Regulation. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  22. ^ Seifter, Miriam (March 8, 2018). "The State(s) of Civil Society Oversight". Yale Journal on Regulation. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  23. ^ Halabi, Sam (March 6, 2018). "Constitutional Coup, Privatization, and the Federal False Claims Act". Yale Journal on Regulation. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  24. ^ Hemel, Daniel (March 8, 2018). "In Praise of Privatization". Yale Journal on Regulation. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  25. ^ Pojanowski, Jeffrey (2018-04-01). "Reconstructing an Administrative Republic". Michigan Law Review. 116 (6): 959–979. doi:10.36644/mlr.116.6.reconstructing. ISSN 0026-2234.
  26. ^ Rahman, K. Sabeel (2018-04-10). "Reconstructing the Administrative State in an Era of Economic and Democratic Crisis". Harvard Law Review. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  27. ^ Alvarez, Joshua (2017-10-26). "The Pitfalls of Privatization". Washington Monthly. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  28. ^ a b VIGILANTE NATION | Kirkus Reviews.
  29. ^ "Vigilante Nation: How State-Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy by Jon Michaels, David Noll". www.publishersweekly.com. (Oct. 11, 2024). Retrieved 2025-07-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  30. ^ Rascoe, Ayesha (2022-09-18). "Taking the law into your own hands: Understanding the rise of citizen-enforced laws". NPR. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  31. ^ Michaels, Jon; Noll, David (2021-09-04). "Opinion | We Are Becoming a Nation of Vigilantes (Published 2021)". Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  32. ^ Edsall, Thomas B. (2025-06-17). "Could the Third Time Be the Charm on Impeachment and Removal?". Retrieved 2025-07-31.
  33. ^ Michaels, Jon D. (2022-01-10). "If the Supreme Court lets other states copy Texas's abortion law, it'll be chaos". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  34. ^ O'Donovan, Caroline; Brulliard, Karin; Berman, Mark; Ables, Kelsey (June 13, 2025). "Trump can keep California National Guard deployed for now, appeals court says". The Washington Post.
  35. ^ Huq, Aziz Z.; Michaels, Jon D. (2025-06-09). "As the feds abdicate responsibilities, states should band together". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  36. ^ Michaels, Jon D. (2022-08-08). "Solve the insulin pricing problem by getting government into the business". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  37. ^ Rector, Kevin (2025-05-09). "Whether it's his plan or not, Trump's policies so far closely align with Project 2025". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2025-07-31.
  38. ^ Rector, Kevin (2025-09-11). "A new era of American political violence is upon us. How did we get here? How does it end?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  39. ^ Michaels, Jon D.; Kalita, S. Mitra (2021-12-07). "Why Abortion Access Is a Workplace Issue". Time. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  40. ^ Michaels, Jon D. (2024-06-10). "A Deep State of His Own". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  41. ^ Michaels, Jon D. (2017-08-15). "Trump and the "Deep State"". Foreign Affairs. Vol. 96, no. 5. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  42. ^ Wolf, Zachary B. (2019-09-28). "The whistleblower vs. Trump's 'deep state' | CNN Politics". CNN. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
  43. ^ Michaels, Jon D. "Why Trump's budget bill is getting resistance from Republicans - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2025-07-30.
  44. ^ Michaels, Jon D. "From de-escalation to defiance: Judges must confront Trump's constitutional overreach - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2025-07-30.