Jennifer Mason McAward

Associate Professor of Law
Director, Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights

Office: 2154 Eck Hall of Law
Phone: 574-631-7528
Fax: 574-631-8702
Email: mason.1@nd.edu
Staff Assistant: Mary Juckett
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Jennifer Mason McAward is an associate professor of law, whose teaching and research interests focus on civil rights, constitutional law, and habeas corpus. Her scholarship addresses the relationship between Congress and the federal courts with respect to protecting individual rights. Her current projects explore the power of Congress to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment. She joined the Notre Dame Law School faculty in 2005 and was named Distinguished Professor of the Year in 2007. 

Mason McAward received her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from the University of Notre Dame in 1994. She majored in Government and minored in Theology. Upon graduation, she spent one year doing volunteer work through the Holy Cross Associates program. In 1998, she received her J.D. summa cum laude from New York University School of Law, where she was managing editor of the law review. 

Following law school, Mason McAward clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski on the Ninth Circuit and then for United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. She practiced law and completed a public service fellowship with Holland & Knight LLP in Washington, D.C.

Courses Taught

LAW70305, Constitutional Law II

LAW70360, Civil Rights Law

LAW70468, Post-Conviction Remedies

Scholarship

Supreme Court – October Term 2012 Foreword: The Confident Court,47 LOY. L.A. L. REV. 379-392 (2014). 

The Civil Rights Legacy of Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, NOTRE DAME J.L. ETHICS & PUB. POL’Y 309-322 (2014).

Good Faith and Narrow Tailoring in Fisher v. University of Texas, 59 LOY. L. REV. 77-87 (2013) . 

McCulloch and the Thirteenth Amendment, 112 COLUM. L. REV. 1769-1809 (2012). 

Defining the Badges and Incidents of Slavery, 14 U. PA. J. CONST. L. 561-630 (2012). 

Congressional Authority to Interpret the Thirteenth Amendment: A Response to Professor Tsesis, 71 MD. L. REV. 60-82 (2011). 

The Scope of Congress’s Thirteenth Amendment Enforcement Power after City of Boerne v. Flores, 88 WASH. U. L. REV. 77-147 (2010). 

Congress's Power to Block Enforcement of Federal Court Orders, 93 IOWA L. REV. 1319-1367 (2008). 

Buying Time for Survivors of Domestic Violence: A Proposal for Implementing an Exception to Welfare Time Limits, 73 New York University Law Review 621-66 (1998).

Areas of Expertise

• Catholic Social Teaching
• Civil Rights Law
• Constitutional Law
• Federal Courts
• Habeas Corpus