David Williams
John S. Hastings Professor of Law
Office: 268Phone: 812-855-6793
E-mail: dacwilli@indiana.edu
B.A., 1982, Haverford College; J.D., 1985, Harvard University, Board of Editors, Harvard Law Review. Law Clerk, Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 1985-86. Cornell Law School, 1989-93.
A noted constitutional law scholar, Professor Williams has written numerous articles in major journals throughout the country. He is a popular lecturer on Native American people and on the Second Amendment. Winner of the Wallace Teaching Award, Professor Williams teaches Constitutional Law and Native American Law.
In recent years, his research has focused on two aspects of constitutional law: the right of Native American tribes to self-government within the American constitutional system, and the alleged constitutional right of the people to keep and bear arms in order to make revolution against government. These two seemingly unrelated topics raise the common theme of examining the possibility of popular government outside the normal channels of state and federal elections, and more specifically the claimed right of an "organic" people to resist the encroachment of an "alien" government.
Professor Williams's book The Mythic Meanings of the Second Amendment: Taming Political Violence in a Constitutional Republic, has recently been published by Yale University Press.
Teaching and Research Interests
Courses
- Constitutional Law (B513)
- Native American Law (B770)
- Seminar in Constitutional Law (L799)
- Constitutional Design in Multiethnic Societies (B575)
- Constitutional Law (B513)