McMahon Will Address Nixon Administration’s Effect on U.S. Supreme Court

What: Kevin J. McMahon, the John Reinhart Reitemeyer Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science at Trinity College, will deliver his inaugural lecture on Tuesday, April 7. McMahon’s lecture, “Nixon’s Court: The Silent Majority and the Conservative Counterrevolution That Was,” will examine how President Richard Nixon’s judicial policy succeeded in bringing a conservative tilt to the U.S. Supreme Court. McMahon offers an argument counter to the most memorable scholarly assessment to date, which described Nixon’s campaign to transform the Supreme Court as the “counterrevolution that wasn’t.” McMahon will discuss the Nixon administration’s role in constructing a more conservative Supreme Court and building a permanent Republican majority.

When: Tuesday, April 7, 2009 ~ 4:30 p.m.

Where: Wean Terrace Rooms, Mather Hall, 2nd Floor, on the Trinity College campus, 300 Summit Street, Hartford, CT

Background: Kevin J. McMahon is the John Reinhart Reitemeyer Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science at Trinity College. His research examines the presidency and the political origins and consequences of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, covering a range of areas, including civil rights and liberties, constitutional law, American political development, political parties, and elections. His book, Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown (University of Chicago Press, 2004), won the American Political Science Association’s Richard E. Neustadt Award for the best book published on the American presidency in 2004. He is currently working on a book entitled, Nixon’s Court: The Silent Majority and the Conservative Counterrevolution That Was, for the University of Chicago Press.  McMahon joined the Trinity faculty in 2005. Previously, he was an Associate Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York, Fredonia. At Fredonia, McMahon was honored with the Hagan “Young” Scholar Award, and in 2006 he traveled to the University of Montreal as a Fulbright Distinguished Research Chair in U.S.-Canada Relations.

The John Reinhart Reitemeyer Professorship of Political Science was endowed at the College in 1982 through the bequest of Gertrude B. Reitemeyer of Barkhamsted, CT, in memory of her husband. John R. Reitemeyer was a member of the Class of 1921. Upon graduation he embarked on a career in journalism that culminated in his service as president and publisher of The Hartford Courant from 1947-1968. Reitemeyer was a Trustee of Trinity College from 1950 until his death in 1979. By 2008, the Reitemeyer endowment had grown sufficient to support a second faculty position. Kevin J. McMahon is the inaugural chair holder of that second chair.

The April 7 lecture is free and open to the public.  For more information, please call the Trinity College Advancement Office at (860) 297-2010.

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