Garrett Epps | |
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![]() Epps in 2014 | |
Born | 1950 (age 74–75) Richmond, Virginia, U.S. |
Occupation |
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Education | Harvard University (BA) Hollins University (MA) Duke University (JD, LLM) |
Garrett Epps (born 1950) is an American legal scholar, novelist, and journalist. He was professor of law at the University of Baltimore until his retirement in June 2020; previously he was the Orlando J. and Marian H. Hollis Professor of Law at the University of Oregon. [1]
Epps attended St. Christopher's School and Harvard College, where he was president of The Harvard Crimson . [2] He later received an M.A. degree in Creative Writing from Hollins University, and a J.D. degree from Duke University, where he was first in his class. After graduation from Harvard, he was a cofounder of The Richmond Mercury, a short-lived alternative weekly whose alumni include Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Frank Rich and Glenn Frankel. He also worked as an editor or reporter for The Richmond Afro-American, The Virginia Churchman, The Free-Lance Star , and The Washington Post . From 1983 until 1988, he was a columnist for Independent Weekly (then a bi-weekly). Immediately before moving to the University of Oregon, he spent a year clerking for Judge John D. Butzner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Epps has written two novels, including The Shad Treatment , which won the Lillian Smith Book Award, as well as the nonfiction books To An Unknown God: Religious Freedom on Trial , which was published in 2001 and was a finalist for the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award, and Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Civil Rights in Post-Civil War America , which was published in 2006. Democracy Reborn won the 2007 Oregon Book Award for non-fiction, and was a finalist for the ABA Silver Gavel Award. He has also written numerous articles and editorials in newspapers including the New York Times , The Washington Post , and The Atlantic . In his article "The Founders' Great Mistake", [3] he urged America to amend its Constitution to more closely resemble a parliamentary system.