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Degrees:
Ph.D., Brandeis Univ.
B.A., SUNY at Potsdam
Kevin J. McMahon is the John R. Reitemeyer Professor of Political Science. In 2024, the University of Chicago Press will publish his next book, A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other: The Deepening Divide Between the Justices and the People. In 2014, the Supreme Court Historical Society selected his book, Nixon's Court: His Challenge to Judicial Liberalism and Its Political Consequences (Chicago, 2011), for its rarely-awarded Erwin N. Griswold Book Prize. Upon receiving the award, Professor McMahon delivered a lecture on the book in the courtroom of the United States Supreme Court. Nixon's Court was also selected as a 2012 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title. Professor McMahon's first book, Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown (Chicago, 2004), won the American Political Science Association’s Richard E. Neustadt Award for the best book published that year on the American presidency. He is also the co-author/co-editor of three books on the presidency and presidential elections and author or co-author of many book chapters and journal articles. Professor McMahon earned his PhD at Brandeis University in 1997. As an advanced graduate student, he taught for two years in Russia with the Civic Education Project (a.k.a., the “academic Peace Corps”), first in Yekaterinburg and then in Krasnodar. Before arriving at Trinity in 2005, he taught at the State University of New York, Fredonia, where he was honored with the Hagan “Young” Scholar Award. In 2006, he was a Fulbright Distinguished Research Chair at the University of Montreal. In the classroom, his teaching style is Socratic in spirit, driven by a philosophy that students perform best when they are asked to actively participate in their own learning. |
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The American Presidency
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Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
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Constitutional Law and the Supreme Court
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Law and Society
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Comparative Constitutional Conflicts
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POLS-273
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Law, Politics, and Society
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POLS-307
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Constitutional Powers and Civil Rights
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POLS-325
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American Presidency
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POLS-412
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Senior Seminar: Advanced Topics in Law & Society
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Law, Politics, and Religion
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The American Presidency
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Constitutional Law and the Supreme Court
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Parties and Elections
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American Political Development
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Single-Authored Books
- McMahon, Kevin J. A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other: The Deepening Divide Between the Justices and the People. University of Chicago Press, 2024.
- McMahon, Kevin J. Nixon's Court: His Challenge to Judicial Liberalism and Its Political Consequences. University of Chicago Press, 2011.
- McMahon, Kevin J. Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown. University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Co-Authored/Co-Edited Books
- McMahon, Kevin J., David M. Rankin, Donald W. Beachler, and John Kenneth White. Winning the White House, 2008. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
- McMahon, Kevin J., David M. Rankin, Donald W. Beachler, and John Kenneth White. Winning the White House, 2004: Region by Region, Vote by Vote. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
- McMahon, Kevin J., Jon Kraus, and David M. Rankin, editors. Transformed by Crisis: The Presidency of George W. Bush and American Politics. Palgrave Macmillan of St. Martin’s Press, 2004.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
- "Will the Court Still 'Seldom Stray Very Far'? Regime Politics in a Polarized America," Chicago-Kent Law Review, vol. 93, no.2, 2018, 343-371.
- "'The Supreme Court: It's What It's All About'... Or Was It? Analyzing the Court Issue in the 2016 Presidential Election," Conventional Wisdom, Parties, and Broken Barriers in the 2016 Election, edited by Jennifer C. Lucas, Christopher J. Galdieri, & Tauna s. Sisco, Lexington Books, 2018, 41-60.
- “Why Roe Still Stands: Abortion Law, the Supreme Court, and the Republican Regime," co-authored with Thomas M. Keck, Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, volume 70, 2016, 33-83.
- “Confirming Chiefs: Ideology, Opportunity, and the Court's Center Chair,” forthcoming in The Chief Justice: Appointment and Influence, edited by David J. Danelski and Artemus Ward, University of Michigan Press, 2016, 120-144.
- “Absolutism and Democracy: Justice Hugo L. Black's Free Speech Jurisprudence,” co-authored with Michael Paris, in Judging Free Speech: First Amendment Jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court, edited by Helen Knowles and Steven Lichtman, Palsgrave, 2015, 75-97.
- “Obama in the Northeast: Race and Electoral Politics in America’s Bluest Region,” in Barack Obama and the Myth of a Post-Racial America, edited by Mark Ledwidge, Kevern Verney, and Inderjeet Parmar, Routledge, 2014, 65-79.
- “A Polarizing Court?: Analyzing Judicial Decisions in a Red/Blue America,” in Politics to the Extreme: American Political Institutions in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Scott Frisch and Sean Kelly, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 161-184.
- “Explaining the Selection and Rejection of Harriet Miers: George W. Bush, Political Symbolism, and the Highpoint of Conservatism,” American Review of Politics, vol. 29, Fall 2008, 253-270.
- “Presidents, Political Regimes, and Contentious Supreme Court Nominations: A Historical Institutional Model,” Law & Social Inquiry, vol. 32, no. 4, Fall 2007, 919-954.
- “Democratic Politics and Constitutional Creation: The Paradoxes of Presidential Policy toward the Judiciary,” in Executing the Constitution: Putting the President Back into the Constitution, edited by Chris Kelley, State University of New York Press, 2006, 181-197.
- “Notwithstanding the Notwithstanding Clause: Political Regimes and Constitutional Politics in the U.S. and Canada,” Canadian Foreign Policy, vol. 12, no. 3, Winter 2006, 45-52.
- “Judicial Confessions: John F. Kerry, Catholics, and the Supreme Court,” The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics, vol. 2, no. 3, art. 4, October 2004, 13 pgs.
- “Crisis and the Pursuit of Conservatism: Liberty, Security, and the Bush Justice Department,” in Transformed by Crisis: The Presidency of George W. Bush and American Politics, edited by Jon Kraus, Kevin J. McMahon, and David M. Rankin, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 119-140.
- “The Challenges Ahead: George W. Bush and the 2004 Election,” (with David M. Rankin) in Transformed by Crisis: The Presidency of George W. Bush and American Politics, edited by Jon Kraus, Kevin J. McMahon, and David M. Rankin, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 199-207.
- “Constitutional Vision and Supreme Court Decisions: Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race,” Studies in American Political Development, vol. 14, no. 1, Spring 2000, 20-50.
- “The Politics of Rights Revisited: Rosenberg, McCann, and the New Institutionalism,” co-authored with Michael Paris, in Leveraging the Law: Using the Courts to Achieve Social Change, edited by David Schultz, Peter Lang, 1998, 63-134.
Review Essays
- “The Justices Decide: Analyzing Attitudes, Politics, and the Law,” Tulsa Law Review, vol. 48, no. 2, Winter 2012, 265-274.
- “You Can’t Go Home Again: Democratic Presidents and Dixie,” Reviews in American History, vol. 35, no. 1, March 2007, 111-117.
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- Trustee Award for Faculty Excellence, 2023
- The Supreme Court Historical Society's Erwin N. Griswold Book Prize (awarded in 2014 for Nixon's Court)
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Choice Magazine: 2012 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title (for Nixon's Court)
- Founders' Award for conference paper “Richard Nixon, the Supreme Court, and the Politics of Desegregation in the Urban North,” American Political Science Association, 2010
- Fulbright Distinguished Research Chair at the University of Montreal, 2006
- Richard E. Neustadt Book Award for Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race, American Political Science Association, 2005
- William T. Hagan “Young” Scholar Award, 2005
- Fellow for CONNECT (a Canadian Studies Initiative), 2004
- Supreme Court Historical Society Fellow, 2001
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