Christopher Edley

Christopher F. Edley, Jr. "joined Boalt Hall as dean and professor of law in 2004 after 23 years as a professor at Harvard Law School. He earned a law degree and a master's degree in public policy from Harvard, where he served as an editor and officer of the Harvard Law Review. Edley's academic work is primarily in the areas of civil rights and administrative law. He has also taught federalism, budget policy, Defense Department procurement law, national security law, and environmental law. Edley was co-founder of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, a renowned multidisciplinary research and policy think tank focused on issues of racial justice. His publications include Not All Black and White: Affirmative Action, Race and American Values and Administrative Law: Rethinking Judicial Control of Bureaucracy.

"Following graduation, Edley joined President Carter's administration as assistant director of the White House domestic policy staff, where his responsibilities included welfare reform and social security. He served as national issues director throughout the 1987-88 Dukakis presidential campaign, and as a senior adviser on economic policy for President Bill Clinton's transition team in 1992. In the Clinton administration, he worked as associate director for economics and government at the White House Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1995. There, he oversaw a staff of 70 civil servants responsible for White House oversight of budget, legislative, and management issues in five cabinet departments (Justice, Treasury, Transportation, Housing & Urban Development, Commerce) and a diverse group of more than 40 autonomous agencies, including: FEMA, FCC, General Services Administration, SBA, SEC, CFTC, EEOC, and the bank regulatory agencies. In 1995, he was also special counsel to the president, directing the White House review of affirmative action. He returned to the Clinton White House in 1997 as a consultant to the president's advisory board on the race initiative.

"From 1999-2005, Edley served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In 2001, he was a member of the Carter-Ford National Commission on Federal Election Reform. He is currently a trustee of the Russell Sage Foundation and The Century Foundation, and a member of the National Academy of Public Administration, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the executive committee of the advisory board for the Division on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education of the National Academies of Sciences.

"In March 2006, Edley was named to a national nonpartisan commission created to conduct an independent review of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. The 15-member Commission on No Child Left Behind has issued recommendations for reforming and improving the legislation as Congress considers reauthorizing the sweeping federal education act in 2007. Co-chaired by former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and former Georgia Governor Roy E. Barnes, the commission is funded by several leading educational foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation." 


 * Former Trustee, Russell Sage Foundation
 * Advisory Board, Human Rights Center of the University of California
 * Advisory Board, American Constitution Society
 * Member, Human Rights Watch U.S. Advisory Committee
 * Coordinating Committee, The Century Foundation Homeland Security Project
 * U.S. Program Advisory Panel, Gates Foundation
 * Editorial Committee, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas

Related Sourcewatch

 * Michael Dukakis