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Rene  Reyes

Associate Professor of Law

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Biography

René Reyes joined the Suffolk Law faculty after serving as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard. Prior to entering academe, Professor Reyes practiced trial and appellate litigation at Goodwin Procter LLP and served as an Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School and his A.B. from Harvard College.

Professor Reyes’ research focuses on U.S. Constitutional Law; Comparative Constitutional Law; Critical Race Theory; Abolition; and Law & Religion. His scholarship has been published by journals and law reviews at Harvard, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, the University of Michigan, and other leading law schools. In recognition of his work, he has received the Kindregan Scholarship Award for outstanding faculty achievements in research and scholarly productivity.

Professor Reyes teaches courses in Constitutional Law; Race, Equal Protection & Due Process; Critical Race Theory; and Criminal Procedure. He employs critical and anti-racist pedagogies in all of his courses, and strives to amplify voices and narratives that have traditionally been suppressed or erased in U.S. legal discourse. For his teaching and service, he has been presented with the Creating the Dream Award for Outstanding Contributions to Suffolk University’s Communities of Color; a Certificate of Appreciation from the Suffolk University Law School Black Law Student Association; and the Cella Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions in advising the Suffolk University Law Review.

Education

  • AB; JD, Harvard University

Publications

Articles 

  • Critical Remembering: Amplifying, Analyzing, and Understanding the Legacy of Anti-Mexican Violence in the United States, 26 HARVARD LATIN AMERICAN LAW REVIEW 15 (2023).
  • Religious Liberty, Racial Justice, and Discriminatory Impacts: Why the Equal Protection Clause Should Be Applied at Least as Strictly as the Free Exercise Clause, 55 INDIANA LAW REVIEW 275 (2022).
  • Abolition Constitutionalism and Non-Reformist Reform: The Case for Ending Pretrial Detention, 53 Connecticut Law Review 667 (2021).
  • Constitutional Crises Compared: Impeachment, Brexit, and Executive Accountability, 35 Emory International Law Review 441 (2021).
  • Masterpiece Cakeshop and Ashers Baking Company: A Comparative Analysis of Constitutional Confections, 16 Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties 113 (2020)
  • Religion in Judicial Decision-Making: An Empirical Analysis, 2019 BYU Law Review 293 (2019) (with Jessica W. Reyes).
  • Second Thoughts About Stun Guns, 74 Washington & Lee Review Online 450 (2018)
  • Nondelegation Doctrine in Comparative Context: Britain’s Great Repeal Bill and the Shadow of Henry VIII, 166 University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online 71 (2017).
  • May Britain Trump America When it Comes to Democracy?, 58 Virginia Journal of International Law Digest 1 (2017).
  • Legislative Sovereignty, Executive Power, and Judicial Review: Comparative Insights from Brexit, 115 Michigan Law Review Online 91 (2017).
  • The Mixed Blessings of (Non-)Establishment, 80 Albany Law Review 405 (2016).
  • The Effect of Malpractice Liability on Obstetrics and Gynecology: Taking the Measure of a Crisis, 47 New England Law Review 315 (2013) (with Jessica W. Reyes).
  • Common Cause in the Culture Wars?, 27 Journal of Law and Religion 231 (2012).
  • The Fading Free Exercise Clause, 19 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 725 (2011). 
  • The Supreme Court’s Catholic Majority: Doctrine, Discretion, and Judicial Decision-Making, 85 Saint John’s Law Review 649 (2011). 
  • Justice Souter’s Religion Clause Jurisprudence: Judgments of Conscience, 43 Connecticut Law Review 303 (2010).
  • Conscience Reexamined: Liberty, Equality, and the Legacy of Roger Williams, 36 Hastings, Constitutional Law Quarterly 1 (2008).
  • Do Even Presidents Have Private Lives? The Case for Executive Privacy as a Right Independent of Executive Privilege, 17 Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy 477 (2008).

Bar Admittance

  • MA
  • U.S.D.C for the District of Mass.
  • U.S. Court of Appeals 1st Circuit
Law Professor Rene Reyes

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Courses Taught

  • Constitutional Law
  • Race, Equal Protection & Due Process
  • Critical Race Theory
  • Criminal Procedure