Stuart S. Taylor, Jr.

Freelance Journalist and Author

Stuart S. Taylor, Jr.

Freelance Journalist and Author

Stuart Taylor, Jr. is a Washington writer focusing on legal and policy issues and a National Journal contributing editor. He occasionally practices law.

Taylor has coauthored three books. All have been acclaimed by commentators across the ideological spectrum. In January 2017, KC Johnson and Taylor authored The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities. In 2012, Richard Sander and Taylor authored Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It. In 2007, Taylor and Johnson authored Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Fraud. Sander and Taylor have also filed amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases involving admissions preferences.

Since 1980, Taylor has done reporting and commentary about issues ranging from the biggest Supreme Court cases to race, voting rights, mindlessly excessive criminal penalties, guilt-presuming campus rape processes, journalistic bias, the death penalty, war powers, gerrymandering, guns, polarization, civil liberties, national security, torture, campaign finance, education, impeachment, and other issues. He has often been called one of the nation’s best legal journalists and is known for challenging both liberal and conservative conventional wisdom.

Taylor was a reporter for The New York Times from 1980-1988, covering legal affairs and then the Supreme Court. He wrote commentaries and long features for The American Lawyer, Legal Times and their affiliates from 1989-1997, and for National Journal and Newsweek from 1998 through 2010. He has written (less often) on a freelance basis for numerous publications since 2010. He has written op-eds for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The New York Daily News and longer commentaries for RealClearPolitics, The Atlantic, The New Republic, the (late) Weekly StandardNational Review, Slate, The Daily Beast, Harper’s, Reader’s Digest, Time and other magazines.  He has been interviewed on all major television and radio networks. He taught “Law and the News Media” at Stanford Law School in 2011 and 2012 and practices law on occasion.

Taylor graduated from Princeton University in 1970 with an A.B. in History. After working as a reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun and Sun from 1971-1974, he moved to Harvard Law School, was a Harvard Law Review note editor, and graduated in 1977 at the top of his class, with high honors. He also won a Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship and traveled around the world in 1977-1978 while studying freedom of the press in the United Kingdom and Kenya.

Taylor practiced law with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, in Washington, D.C., from 1977-1980 before returning to journalism in 1980 by joining the Washington Bureau of The New York Times.

Taylor’s journalism honors include the 2009 Northern California Innocence Project Media Award for his work on the Duke lacrosse rape fraud; a 2002 National Headliner Award for best special magazine column on one subject; and a share of The American Lawyer’s National Magazine Award for a March 1990 special issue on the drug war. He was a National Magazine Award finalist in 1993 and 1997 and was nominated by The New York Times for a Pulitzer Prize in 1988.

A person listed as a contributor has spoken or otherwise participated in Regulatory Transparency Project events, publications, or multimedia presentations. A person's appearance on the website does not imply an endorsement or relationship between the person and the Regulatory Transparency Project. The Regulatory Transparency Project takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues. All expressions of opinion by a contributor are those of the contributor.

Contributions

Deep Dive Episode 125 – The New Title IX Rules

August 13, 2020

This live podcast discusses and analyzes what new Title IX rulemaking means for students, schools, potential legal challenges, and future administrations.

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Deep Dive Episode 91 – The Expected New Title IX Rules

March 3, 2020
In this episode, Linda Chavez moderates as KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor discuss the implications for anticipated Department of Education rules governing Title IX campus proceedings on allegations of sexual assault and harassment.
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Are U.S. Colleges and Universities Barring Asian Applicants Based on their Race?

May 30, 2018

The Regulatory Transparency Project and the Center for Equal Opportunity co-sponsored a discussion on the admissions practices at elite colleges as they affect Asian American applicants.

Linda Chavez and her CEO colleagues presented and released a new study and report entitled “‘Too Many Asian Americans?’ Affirmative Discrimination in Elite College Admissions.” The CEO study illustrates that while Caltech admissions decisions are race-blind, its elite sister institutions Harvard University and MIT have established “ceilings”—or a limit—on Asian American acceptances. In addition to addressing the direct ramifications of their study’s findings, event panelists also discussed the unintended consequences of these admissions practices, whether current regulations are adequate to address issues of racial discrimination in college admissions, and what additional role government or civil society may play in redressing racially discriminatory admissions practices.

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