Professor Jud Mathews becomes first American to join German Society of Public Law

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.—Penn State Dickinson Law Professor of Law Jud Mathews has achieved what is believed to be a historic first, becoming the only American member of the German Society of Public Law.

Founded in 1922, the Society includes tenured professors of constitutional and administrative law at German universities. It also has a handful of members from other countries who also study and publish on German public law.

“For a scholar of comparative law, to be part of the legal discussions that happen inside of another legal system is a rare privilege and a priceless opportunity,” said Mathews. “I’m very grateful to the German Society of Public Law for welcoming me into conversation with its other members. These exchanges have not only deepened my understanding of German law, but they have also shaped how I think about law more generally. I am looking forward to continuing to learn from this association in the years to come.”

“It is an enormous pleasure and honor to welcome our colleague Jud Mathews in the German Society of Public Law—the so-called Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer. To my knowledge, he is the first U.S. legal scholar to be invited to join the association. Founded in 1922 and with a hiatus from 1932 to 1949, the Society now has over 800 members, mostly from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland,” said Professor Bettina Schöndorf-Haubold of the Justus Liebig University of Giessen, who co-sponsored Mathews’ membership.

The organization chose “German Society of Public Law” as its English-language name at the October annual meeting, which Mathews attended. As the sole American member, he was asked to weigh in on the different options under consideration.

Mathews is already looking forward to the Society’s next conference. The board of the Society chooses a theme for each one and selects four topics related to that theme for presentations. Nearly a year in advance, two scholars are invited to present papers on each of the four topics. After the conference, the papers and any questions posed after each presentation along with the presenters’ responses are published as a book.

“Thanks to his excellent knowledge of German legal scholarship and his numerous research stays in Germany—especially as an esteemed Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Humboldt University in Berlin—Jud Mathews has close ties to German public law and to an impressive number of German scholars,” said Schöndorf-Haubold. “His admission is a great asset to the association and an important affirmation of German-American research cooperation. We are delighted to count him among our academic community.”

In addition to being a professor of law at Penn State Dickinson Law, Mathews is also a professor of political science in the College of Liberal Arts (by courtesy) and an affiliate professor in the School of International Affairs.

He has written extensively about techniques of constitutional rights adjudication in the United States and in other jurisdictions, particularly about proportionality review. His scholarship in administrative law has explored the political economy of judicial deference doctrines and the tensions between administrative law and democratic theory.