Northern Illinois University
College of Law

Evan Bernick joined the NIU Law faculty in 2021. He teaches courses in constitutional law, criminal law, criminal procedure, administrative law and legislation.

From 2020 to 2021, Professor Bernick was a visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and the executive director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. Before that, he served as a clerk to Judge Diane S. Sykes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. From April 2017 to April 2019, he was a visiting lecturer at Georgetown and a resident fellow of the Center for the Constitution.

His scholarship covers a range of topics, from constitutional law, to philosophy of law, to social movements, to law enforcement. He has published with the Georgetown Law Journal, the Notre Dame Law Review, the William and Mary Law Review and the George Mason Law Review, among other journals. His book, The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit (2021), with Randy E. Barnett, was published by Harvard University Press under its Belknap imprint "for books of long-lasting importance, superior in scholarship and physical production, chosen whether or not they might be profitable."

Professor Bernick received his bachelor's degree in 2008 from the University of Chicago, where he studied philosophy and graduated with honors. He received his juris doctorate in 2011 from the University of Chicago Law School.

Areas of Expertise

• Administrative law
• Constitutional law
• Constitutional theory
• Criminal law
• Criminal procedure
• Law enforcement/policing
• Legislation
• Philosophy of law

Books

• The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit (with Randy E. Barnett) (Harvard University Press, 2021). 

Articles

• There Is Something that Our Constitution Just Is (with Christopher R. Green), Tex. Rev. L. & Pol. (forthcoming 2022).
• Eliminating Constitutional Law, 67 S.D. L. Rev. 1 (2022). 
• Policing as Unequal Protection (May 21, 2021).
• Antisubjugation and the Equal Protection of the Laws, 110 Geo L.J. 1 (2021).
• The Morality of the Presidential Oath, 47 Ohio N.U. L. Rev. 33 (2021).
• What is the Object of the Constitutional Oath? (with Christopher R. Green) (August 22, 2019).
• Substantive Due Process for Justice Thomas, 26 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 1087 (2019). 
• The Privileges or Immunities Clause, Abridged: A Critique of Kurt Lash on the Fourteenth Amendment (with Randy E. Barnett), 95 Notre Dame L. Rev. 499  (2019). 
• Faithful Execution: Where Administrative Law Meets the Constitution, 108 Geo. L.J. 1 (2019). 
• No Arbitrary Power: An Originalist Theory of the Due Process of Law (with Randy E. Barnett), 60 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1599 (2019).
• Envisioning Administrative Procedure Act Originalism, 70 Admin. L. Rev. 807 (2018). 
• The Letter and the Spirit: A Unified Theory of Originalism (with Randy E. Barnett), 107 Geo. L.J. 1 (2018).
• Is Judicial Deference to Agency Fact-Finding Unlawful?, 16 Geo. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 27 (2018).
• Reason’s Republic, 10 N.Y.U. J.L. & Liberty 522 (2016).
• Towards a Consistent Economic Liberty Jurisprudence, 23 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 479 (2016).