Kimberly West-Faulcon will be joining the Kutler Center program as the new Scholar in Residence for the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year. The Kutler Center Scholar in Residence program brings noted scholars and intellectuals to the school to share their knowledge and expertise with the entire community for two and a half days.

West-Faulcon researches, writes and teaches about the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court on a range of topics that include Equal Protection issues such as race, sex and gender identity discrimination, liberties protected by the Due Process Clause such as same-sex marriage and abortion, and the Second Amendment.

“I am particularly interested in the doctrinal implications of a majority of the current Supreme Court justices ascribing to original meaning originalism as a theory of constitutional interpretation,” West-Faulcon said. “I have been studying and teaching about the origins of originalism for many years now based on my expectation that this theory would someday become a majority view on the Supreme Court.”

West-Faulcon says she is eager to teach students about the significance of constitutional law and hopes students can learn to differentiate between certain legal terms.

“I am most excited to help the Harvard-Westlake community understand the importance of distinguishing between legal theory, legal doctrine, and policy preferences as it relates to the Second Amendment and the government’s regulation of pregnant people – abortion regulations,” West-Faulcon said. “My goal is to do for the Harvard-Westlake community what I always try to do for my constitutional law students as well as for audiences I speak to about Constitutional Law. I want to increase everyone’s, as I like to call it, Constitutional Law literacy.”

Director of Kutler Center and Director of Summer School Programs Jim Patterson said the program chose West-Faulcon because of her breadth of knowledge of the law.

“Kim West-Faulcon was chosen because of her work in constitutional law and its impact on society,” Patterson said. “The law generally is an interdisciplinary field as its applications apply to many aspects of society. Professor West-Faulcon has studied aspects of law that apply to current political issues, the makeup of the supreme court, standardized testing, and equal protection, among others. She will be able to bring her expertise to a variety of classes during her visit.”