Nicole Stelle Garnett
Associate Dean for External Engagement
John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law
Office: 3115 Eck Hall of Law
Phone: 574-631-3091
Fax: 574-631-8078
Email: ngarnett@nd.edu
Staff Assistant: Alicia Cummins
CV: View
SSRN: View
Nicole Stelle Garnett is the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, where she also serves as the Associate Dean for External Engagement and directs the Notre Dame Education Law Project. Her teaching and research focus on education law and policy, religious liberty, and topics related to property law (especially land use and urban development policies). In addition to dozens of articles on these subjects, she is the author of Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools' Importance in Urban America (University of Chicago Press, 2014) and Ordering the City: Land Use, Policing and the Restoration of Urban America (Yale University Press, 2009).
Garnett received her B.A. with distinction in Political Science from Stanford University and her J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Morris S. Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and for Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining the law school faculty in 1999, she worked for two years as a staff attorney at the Institute for Justice, a non-profit public-interest law firm in Washington, D.C., where she helped to defend the constitutionality of the nation's first private-school-choice programs.
At Notre Dame, Garnett is a faculty fellow in the Institute for Educational Initiatives, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate, and deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture. She also is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Courses Taught
LAW60906, Property
LAW70313, Law of Education
LAW70317, Local Government
LAW70345, Land Use Planning
LAW73301, State Constitutional Law
LAW73313, Higher Education Law
Scholarship
Books
John E. Coons, The Case for Parental Choice: God, Family, and Educational Liberty (Nicole Garnett, Richard Garnett, and Ernest Morrell, eds.) (Notre Dame Press, 2023)
Lost Classrooms, Lost Community: Catholic Schools’ Importance in Urban America (with Margaret Brinig) (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
Ordering the City: Land Use, Policing and the Restoration of Urban America/ (Yale University Press, 2009)
Selected Articles and Essays
“Preserving the Exit Option: State Public Education Mandates and Parental Rights in Education,” 100 Notre Dame Law Review 1709 (2026) (with John Meiser)
“Two Questions for School-Choice Funding after Carson v. Makin,” 24 First Amendment Law Review 157 (2026) (with John Meiser)
“Parental Choice, Parental Rights, and State Education Mandates,” 26 Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 73 (2024)
“Decoupling Property and Education,” 123 Columbia Law Review 1367 (2023)
“Religious Covenants,” with Patrick Reidy, c.s.c., 74 Florida Law Review 822 (2022)
“Post-Accountability Accountability,” 52 Michigan J. of Law Reform 158 (2018)
“Sector Agnosticism and the Coming Transformation of Education Law,” 70 Vanderbilt Law Review 1 (2017)
“Disparate Impact, Public-School Closures and Parental Choice,” 2014 Chicago Legal Forum 289 (2014)
“Redeeming Transect Zoning?” 78 Brooklyn Law Review 571 (2013)
“Managing the Urban Commons,” 160 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1995 (2012)
“Are Charters Enough Choice? School Choice and the Future of Catholic Schools,” 87 Notre Dame Law Review 1892 (2012)
“Catholic Schools and Broken Windows,” with Margaret Brinig, 9 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 347 (2012)
“Catholic Schools, Charter Schools, and Crime,” with Margaret Brinig, 79 University of Chicago Law Review 31 (2012)
“The People Paradox,” 2012 University of Illinois Law Review 43
“Affordable Private Education and the Middle Class City,” 77 University of Chicago Law Review 205 (2010)
“Unbundling Homeownership: Regional Reforms from the Inside Out,” 119 Yale Law Journal 1904 (2010)
“Catholic Schools, Urban Neighborhoods, and Education Reform” (with Margaret Brinig), 85 Notre Dame Law Review 887 (2010)
“Suburbs as Exit, Suburbs as Entrance,” 106 Michigan Law Review 277 (2007)
“The Neglected Political Economy of Eminent Domain,” 105 Michigan Law Review101 (2006)
“Save the Cities, Stop the Suburbs?” 117 Yale Law Journal 599 (2006)
“Relocating Disorder,” 91 Virginia Law Review 1075 (2005)
“Ordering (and Order in) the City,” 57 Stanford Law Review 1 (2004)
“Trouble Preserving Paradise?” 87 Cornell Law Review 158 (2001)
Policy Reports
“The Persistence of the Unconstitutional Status/Use Distinction in Federal Grants to Religious Nonprofits,” with Cameron Grinnell (October 2025)
“Privately Provided Equitable Services: Root Out Unconstitutional ‘Secular, Neutral, and Non-Ideological Restrictions in Education Law,”with Sean Tehan (September 2025)
“The Persistence of Religious Discrimination in Publicly Funded Pre-K Programs,” with Tim Rosenberger and Theo Austin (January 2024)
“Unconstitutional Religious Discrimination Runs Rampant in State Programs,” with Tim Rosenberger (December 2023)
“Implementing Education Savings Accounts,” with Michael McShane, Manhattan Institute Report (June 2023)
“Unlocking the Potential of Private-School Choice: Avoiding and Overcoming Obstacles to Successful Implementation,” Manhattan Institute Report (March 2023)
“Accountability and Private School Choice,” Manhattan Institute Report (October 2021)
“Religious Charter Schools: Legally Permissible? Constitutionally Required?” Manhattan Institute Policy Brief (December 2020)
Selected Commentary
“The Department of Justice Strengthens Religious Freedom,” City Journal, September 14, 2026 (with Michael Helfand and John Meiser)
“These States are Leading on Restoring Religious Freedom,” City Journal, June 1, 2026 (with Michael Helfand)
“Universal School Choice Works,” City Journal, January 27, 2026
“Parental Rights are on the Move,” National Review, August 21, 2025
“Permitting Religious Charter Schools Would Strengthen Parental Choice,” Education Next, Spring 2025
“The Court Should Bless Religious Charter Schools,” Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2025
“Trump Can End Religious Discrimination,” Wall Street Journal, November 21, 2024 (with John Meiser)
“The Next School-Choice Battles,” National Review, August 22, 2024
“Time to Tear Out the Shag Carpeting,” Law & Liberty, January 9, 2024 (with Tim Rosenberger)
“Parental Choice Victories are Worth Celebrating: Now Comes the Hard Part,” The74, June 22, 2023 (with Michael McShane)
“Religious Charter Schools are OK in Oklahoma,” Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2023
“Oklahoma’s Approval of First Ever Religious Charter School is Cause for Celebration,” Education Next, June 7, 2023
“Tilling the Garden of School Choice,” Law & Liberty, May 10, 2023
“Biden Boils the Religious Liberty Frog,” Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2023 (with Meredith Holland Kessler)
“As Private-School Choice Spreads, Implementation is Imperative,” Education Next, March 23, 2023
“From School Choice to Parent Choice,” City Journal, January 31, 2023
“The First Amendment Wins,” National Review, July 14, 2022
“Another Chink in the Armor of Legal Discrimination against Religious Schools,” Public Discourse, July 5, 2022
“A Victory for Religious Liberty and Educational Pluralism,” City Journal, June 22, 2022
“Clarence Thomas’s Constitutional Excavation,” National Review, October 28, 2021
“What I Saw at the Daytona 500,” Harvard J. of L. & Public Pol’y, August 30, 2021
“Why We Still Need Catholic Schools,” City Journal, Summer 2020
Areas of Expertise
- Education Reform & Policy
- Land Use Planning & Regulation
- Local Government Law
- Property Law
- Regulatory Innovation/design/reform
- School Choice
- Urban & Economic Development