Theodore W. Ruger

Professor of Law

Theodore W. Ruger is the former Dean of the Law School, a scholar of constitutional law, specializing in the study of judicial authority, and an expert on health law and pharmaceutical regulation.

Ruger joined the Law School in 2004 and has also served as Deputy Dean. He has taught a wide range of classes in constitutional law, health law and regulation, legislation, and food and drug law and policy. He has also performed several critical roles in the Law School, including three terms as a member of the faculty appointments committee, one as chair, and another as co-chair. Ruger has also served as an advisor to the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

His scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, Northwestern Law Review, and as the centerpiece of a symposium in Perspectives on Politics, a leading peer-reviewed political science journal.

His current research draws on his broader work on judicial power and constitutionalism and addresses the manner in which American legal institutions—including the U.S. Supreme Court—have shaped the field of health law over the past two centuries.

Prior to joining the Law School, Ruger practiced law at Ropes & Gray in Boston and Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., and began his academic career at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.

Ruger holds an AB from Williams College and a JD from Harvard Law School, and he was a law clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Michael Boudin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

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After the FDA: A Twentieth-Century Agency in a Postmodern World, in FDA IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: THE CHALLENGES OF REGULATING DRUGS AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES (Holly Fernandez Lynch and I. Glenn Cohen, eds, Columbia U. Press, 2015).

Money, Sex, and Religion–The Supreme Court’s ACA Sequel, 371 NEW ENG. J. MED. 862 (2014) (with George J. Annas and Jennifer Prah Ruger).

“Our Federalism” Moves Indoors, 38 J. HEALTH POL. POL’Y. & L. 283 (2013).

Health Policy Devolution and the Institutional Hydraulics of the Affordable Care Act, in THE HEALTH CARE CASE: THE SUPREME COURT’S DECISION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS (Nathaniel Persily, Gillian E. Metzger and Trevor W. Morrison, eds., Oxford, 2013).

Of Icebergs and Glaciers: The Submerged Constitution of American Healthcare, 75 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS. 215 (2012).

Failure by Obsolescence: Regulatory Challenges for the FDA in the Twenty-First Century, in REGULATORY BREAKDOWN: THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE IN U.S. REGULATION 245 (Cary Coglianese ed., University of Pennsylvania Press 2012).

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Theodore W. Ruger

Professor of Law

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