Biography
Mary-Rose Papandrea is the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law. Her teaching and research interests include constitutional law, media law, torts, civil procedure, and national security and civil liberties.
After graduating from Yale College and the University of Chicago Law School, Papandrea clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter as well as Hon. Douglas H. Ginsburg of the D.C. Circuit and Hon. John G. Koeltl of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She then worked as an associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC, where she specialized in First Amendment and media law litigation.
Co-author of the casebook Media and the Law (LexisNexis, 2nd ed. 2014) (with Lee Levine, David Ardia & Dale Cohen), Professor Papandrea has written extensively about various First Amendment and media law topics, including government secrecy and national security leaks, the reporter's privilege, student speech rights, the First Amendment rights of public employees, the government speech doctrine, and the legacy of New York Times v. Sullivan. Representative articles include The End of Balancing? Text, History & Tradition in First Amendment Speech Cases After Bruen, 18 Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy 59-103 (2023) (with Clay Calvert); The Missing Marketplace of Ideas Theory, 94 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1725 (2019): The Free Speech Rights of University Students, 101 Minn. L. Rev. 1801 (2017); The Government Brand, 110 Nw. L. Rev. 1195 (2016); Leaker Traitor Whistleblower Spy: National Security Leaks and the First Amendment, 94 B.U. Law Rev. 449 (2014); Social Media, Public School Teachers, and the First Amendment, 90 N.C. L. Rev. 1597 (2012); Lapdogs, Watchdogs, and Scapegoats: The Press and National Security Information, 83 Ind. L. J. 233 (2008); and Citizen Journalism and the Reporter's Privilege, 97 Minn. L. Rev. 515 (2007).
Professor Papandrea is an elected member of the American Law Institute and an advisor to the ALI’s Third Restatement of Torts: Defamation and Privacy. In addition, she has served as the Chair of the American Association of Law Schools Mass Media Law and National Security Law sections and remains on the Executive Committee of both sections. She has also served as a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of National Security Law & Policy.