Timothy Tracey
Assistant Professor
Professor Tracey came to Ave Maria School of Law in the summer of 2010. He began his legal career at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP in Atlanta, Georgia, where he specialized in commercial litigation and bankruptcy. Professor Tracey's interest in First Amendment litigation took him from big firm practice to the world of public interest law. He left Nelson Mullins for the Center for Law & Religious Freedom in Northern Virginia, where he litigated numerous First Amendment free speech and religious liberty cases. In particular, he litigated the U.S. Supreme Court case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, which he argued in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Professor Tracey spent his last year of legal practice in the Washington, D.C. office of the Alliance Defense Fund, where he continued litigating First Amendment cases and fought to defend the traditional family. Professor Tracey has published and presented on a range of First Amendment topics, focusing on the rights of religious students at public universities and colleges. Most recently, he presented his paper, A Return to the Original Understanding of University Students' Rights, at the Religious Legal Theory Conference hosted by Pepperdine University School of Law. Professor Tracey has been a frequent commentator in local and national media, including the Washington Post and Time magazine. He has handled appeals in the Fourth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits, the California Court of Appeals, and the Kentucky Court of Appeals.
Christian Legal Society v. Martinez: In Hindsight, 34 U. Haw. L. Rev. 71 (2012).
The Demise of Equal Access and a Return to the Early-American Understanding of Student Rights, 43 U. Mem. L. Rev. 557 (2013).
Constitutional Law: Equal Protection, Free Speech, and Religious Worship, Through a Clearer Lens: A Catholic Look at American Law (book edited by Ron Rychlak, forthcoming).
