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Philip Hamburger

Philip Hamburger

Chief Executive Officer


Philip Hamburger is a scholar of constitutional law and its history at Columbia Law School. He received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his J.D. from Yale Law School. Before coming to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor at the University of Chicago Law School. He also taught at George Washington University Law School, Northwestern Law School, University of Virginia Law School, and the University of Connecticut Law School. Professor Hamburger’s contributions are unrivaled by any U.S. legal scholar in driving the national conversations on the First Amendment and the separation of church and state and on administrative power. His work on administrative power has been celebrated by organizations like the Manhattan Institute and the Bradley Foundation, among others.

The Federal Contractor Vaccine Mandate Is Unlawful, Too

By: Philip Hamburger January 19, 2022
In the News
Any statute in a storm appears to be the Biden administration’s approach to imposing a vaccine mandate. The Procurement Act of 1949 was created “to provide the Federal Government with an economical and efficient system for” procurement. Like the OSHA statute that the U.S. Supreme Court just held does not authorize a nationwide vaccine-or-test mandate,…
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Mandates Are About Political Control, Not Health

By: Philip Hamburger January 18, 2022
In the News
For two years, the political class’s ineptitude has been on full display. School shutdowns, business closures, and endless mask mandates have all proven relatively ineffective at stemming the spread of COVID-19 (never mind reducing hospitalizations and deaths), yet politicians continued instituting these harmful and useless measures in a desperate attempt to be perceived as doing…
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Before Judging Vaccines, the Court Should Judge Itself

By: Philip Hamburger January 12, 2022
In the News
The Biden administration has imposed COVID-19 vaccinations on all healthcare workers at Medicare and Medicaid participating facilities as a condition of federal funding. When this condition came before the Supreme Court last Friday in Biden v. Missouri, the justices aptly inquired whether it departed from the Constitution. But they should have also considered their own departures from the Constitution. They then…
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