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Jack Goldsmith Elected to AAAS

Washington and Lee alumnus Jack Goldsmith of the Class of 1984 has just been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies.

Jack is the Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Law at Harvard University. He was among 229 leaders in the sciences, social sciences, the humanities, the arts, business and public affairs elected this year. This year’s inductees include winners of the Nobel, Pulitzer, and Shaw Prizes; MacArthur and Guggenheim fellows; and Grammy, Tony, and Oscar Award winners. The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on October 9, at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

AAAS was founded by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholar-patriots and has elected leading “thinkers and doers” from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the eighteenth century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the nineteenth, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the twentieth. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.

A philosophy major at W&L, Jack presented the Founders’ Day/ODK speech at W&L in 2009. He is the author of The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment inside the Bush Administration and many other books and articles related to terrorism, national security, and international law. Before joining Harvard Law, Jack was assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel, and as special counsel to the general counsel to the Department of Defense.

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