Michael J. Perry is an American legal scholar, specializing in constitutional law

Constitutional law

Constitutional law is the body of law which defines the relationship of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary....

, law and religion, law and morality, and human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

. In 2003, he was appointed as Robert W. Woodruff Professor

Robert W. Woodruff Professor

The Robert W. Woodruff Professorships are endowed professorships at Emory University, named for philanthropist Robert W. Woodruff. The chairs are Emory University's "most distinguished academic appointments [...] reserved for world-class scholars who are not only proven leaders of their own fields...

 of Law at Emory University School of Law

Emory University School of Law

Emory University School of Law is a first-tier US law school that is part of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. It is ranked #30 among ABA-approved law schools by the 2012 U.S. News & World Report...

, the second person to be appointed to such a chair after Harold J. Berman

Harold J. Berman

Harold J. Berman was an American legal scholar who was an expert in comparative, international and Soviet/Russian law as well as legal history, philosophy of law and the intersection of law and religion...

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Books

His books include

• Love and Power: The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics (Oxford, 1991)
• The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford, 1998)
• We the People: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Supreme Court (Oxford, 1999)
• Under God? Religious Faith and Liberal Democracy (Cambridge, 2003)
• Toward a Theory of Human Rights: Religion, Law, Courts (Cambridge, 2007)
• Constitutional Rights, Moral Controversy, and the Supreme Court (Cambridge, 2009)
• The Political Morality of Liberal Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Awards and recognitions

In March 2004, a symposium of some 500 scholars and students gathered at Emory University School of Law to celebrate the scholarship of its three Robert W. Woodruff Professors of Law, Harold J. Berman

Harold J. Berman

Harold J. Berman was an American legal scholar who was an expert in comparative, international and Soviet/Russian law as well as legal history, philosophy of law and the intersection of law and religion...

, Martha Albertson Fineman, and Michael J. Perry, and Visiting Professor Martin E. Marty

Martin E. Marty

Martin Emil Marty is an American Lutheran religious scholar who has written extensively on 19th century and 20th century American religion. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1956, and served as a Lutheran pastor from 1952 to 1962 in the suburbs of Chicago...

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