Mark R. Killenbeck is the Wylie H. Davis Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas. He teaches Constitutional Law, The First Amendment, and American Legal History. A native of Rochester, New York, he earned an A.B. in English Literature at Boston College and both his J.D. and Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska, where he spent thirteen years in the University’s Central Administration, ultimately serving as Chief of Staff for the system President.
Professor Killenbeck is the author of numerous books, chapters, articles, and papers, with a special focus on federalism, American constitutional history, and affirmative action and diversity. His articles have appeared in the Supreme Court Review, Journal of Supreme Court History, California Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, and Hastings Law Journal. His book, M’Culloch v. Maryland: Securing a Nation, was the first book-length treatment of that important case. His assessment of the Supreme Court’s 2003 affirmative action decisions, Affirmative Action and Diversity: The Beginning of the End? Or the End of the Beginning?, was published by the Educational Testing Service in their Policy Information Perspective series. His work has also appeared in The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions, the Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Social Consciousness in Legal Decision Making: Psychological Perspectives.
Professor Killenbeck has been invited to speak at the Supreme Court three times. In May, 2012 he delivered a Leon Silverman Lecture, A Prudent Regard to Our Own Good? The Commerce Clause, in Nation and States. In October, 2014 he provided the expert commentary and introduction for a Frank C. Jones Reenactment of the oral argument in M’Culloch v. Maryland. And in October, 2019 he will deliver a second Leon Silverman Lecture, on notable concurring opinions that effectively served as dissents.