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Darrell A. H. Miller

Academic Faculty

Full Time Teaching Faculty

Darrell A. H. Miller

Professor of Law

Biography

Darrell A. H. Miller is a scholar of civil rights, constitutional law, civil procedure, state and local government law, and legal history.

His scholarship on the Second and Thirteenth Amendments has been published in leading law reviews such as the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, and the Columbia Law Review, and has been cited by several courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States.

With Joseph Blocher, he is author of The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller (Cambridge University Press, 2018). With his co-authors, he is currently working on a textbook to be published by Foundation Press titled The Second Amendment: Gun Rights and Regulation. In addition to his academic writing, Miller has published opinion pieces in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Slate.

Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Chicago in 2024, Miller taught law at the University of Cincinnati and then at Duke University, where he co-founded the Duke Center for Firearms Law, the first academic center of its kind in the nation.

Miller is a former clerk to the Honorable R. Guy Cole, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and practiced complex and appellate litigation at a firm in Columbus, Ohio before beginning his academic career.

A cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, Miller also holds degrees from Oxford University, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar, and from Anderson University. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and currently serves on its Council.

Education and Experience

Education

Harvard Law School, 2001

JD cum laude
Notes Editor, Harvard Law Review

Oxford University, 1997 (2002)

BA Modern History & English
MA (Oxon.)
British Marshall Scholar 1995-1997

Anderson University, 1994

BA summa cum laude English & Education

Experience

University of Chicago Law School

Professor of Law 2024-present
Co-founder, Duke Center for Firearms Law
Council Member, American Law Institute

Duke University School of Law

Melvin G. Shimm Professor of Law 2017-2024 • Professor 2013-2017
Associate Dean for Intellectual Life July 1, 2020-June 30, 2022
Visiting Professor Spring 2012
Faculty Co-director, Duke Center for Firearms Law 2019-2024

University of Chicago Law School

Charles J. Merriam Scholar, Visiting Professor of Law Fall 2019

University of Cincinnati College of Law

Professor 2012-2013 • Associate Professor 2010-2012 • Assistant Professor 2007-2010

Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP

Litigation Associate 2002-2007

Hon. R. Guy Cole, Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

Law Clerk 2001-2002

Publications

Books (Author)

  • The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller (Cambridge University Press, 2018) (with Joseph Blocher).

Books (Editor)

  • New Histories of Gun Rights and Regulation: Essays on the Place of Guns in American Law and Society. (Oxford University Press, 2023) (edited with Joseph Blocher & Jacob D. Charles).

Journal Articles

  • "Originalism’s Selection Problem," 32 William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal __ (2025) (forthcoming).
  • "Technology, Tradition, and “The Terror of the People”," 99 Notre Dame Law Review 1373 (2024) (with Alexandra Filindra & Noah Kaplan). www
  • "Historical Analogy and the Role Morality of Reason-Giving," 73 Duke Law Journal Online 233 (2024). www
  • "The New Outlawry," 124 Columbia Law Review 1195 (2024) (with Jacob D. Charles). www
  • "'A Map Is Not the Territory' : The Theory and Future of Sensitive Places Doctrine," 98 New York University Law Review Online 438 (2023) (with Joseph Blocher & Jacob D. Charles). www
  • "Firearms Law and Scholarship Beyond Bullets and Bodies," 19 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 165 (2023) (with Joseph Blocher & Jacob D. Charles). www
  • "Manufacturing Outliers," 2022 Supreme Court Review 49 (2023) (with Joseph Blocher). www
  • "A Meditation on the Thirteenth Amendment and Constitutional Redemption," 83 Maryland Law Review 331 (2023). www
  • "Common Good Gun Rights," 46 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 1029 (2023). www
  • "Common Use, Lineage, and Lethality," 55 University of California at Davis Law Review 2495 (2022) (with Jennifer Tucker). www
  • "Violence and Nondelegation," 135 Harvard Law Review Forum 463 (2022) (with Jacob D. Charles). www
  • "Estoppel by Nonviolence," 85 Law and Contemporary Problems 69 (2022). www
  • "Second Amendment Equilibria," 116 Northwestern University Law Review 239 (2021). www
  • "Pointing Guns," 99 Texas Law Review 1173 (2021) (with Joseph Blocher & Samuel W. Buell). www
  • "The City’s Second Amendment," 106 Cornell Law Review 677 (2021) (with Dave Fagundes). www
  • "Tainted Precedent," 74 Arkansas Law Review 291 (2021). www
  • "Constitutional Pronouns," 27 Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy 227 (2020). www
  • "Owning Heller," 30 University of Florida Journal of Law and Public Policy 153 (2020).
  • "The Geography of a Constitutional Right: Gun Rights Outside the Home," 83 Law and Contemporary Problems i (2020) (with Joseph Blocher & Jacob D. Charles). www
  • "Constitutional Conflict and Sensitive Places," 28 William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 459 (2019). www
  • "Romanticism Meets Realism in Second Amendment Adjudication," 68 Duke Law Journal Online 33 (2018). www
  • "Dignity and Second Amendment Enforcement," 74 Washington & Lee Law Review Online 438 (2018). www
  • "Comments on an Amendment to Repeal the Natural Born Citizen Clause," 13 Duke Journal of Constitutional Law and Public Policy 77 (2018). www
  • "Fear and Firearms," 52 Tulsa Law Review 553 (2017). www
  • "Self Defense, Defense of Others, and the State," 80 Law and Contemporary Problems 85 (2017). www
  • "Preface: The Second Generation of Second Amendment Law & Policy," 80 Law and Contemporary Problems 1 (2017) (with Eric M. Ruben). www
  • "Institutions and the Second Amendment," 66 Duke Law Journal 69 (2016). www
  • "The Thirteenth Amendment, Disparate Impact, and Empathy Deficits," 39 Seattle University Law Review 847 (2016). www
  • "Continuity and the Declaration of Independence," 89 University of Southern California Law Review 601 (2016). www
  • "Book Review of Ann Larabee, The Wrong Hands: Popular Weapons Manuals and Their Historic Challenges to a Democratic Society (Oxford 2015)," 131 Political Science Quarterly 882 (2016).
  • "Lethality, Public Carry, and Adequate Alternatives," 53 Harvard Journal on Legislation 279 (2016) (with Joseph Blocher). www
  • "Second Amendment Traditionalism and Desuetude," 14 Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy 223 (2016).
  • "What Is Gun Control? Direct Burdens, Incidental Burdens, and the Boundaries of the Second Amendment," 83 University of Chicago Law Review 295 (2016) (with Joseph Blocher). cu www
  • "Peruta, the Home-Bound Second Amendment, and Fractal Originalism," 127 Harvard Law Review Forum 238 (2014). www
  • "Text, History, and Tradition: What the Seventh Amendment Can Teach Us About the Second," 122 Yale Law Journal 852 (2013). www
  • "Analogies and Institutions in the First and Second Amendments: A Response to Professor Magarian," 91 Texas Law Review 137 (2013).
  • "The Thirteenth Amendment and the Regulation of Custom," 112 Columbia Law Review 1811 (2012).
  • "Book Review of Glenda Gilmore, Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950," 52 American Journal of Legal History 379 (2012).
  • "Guns, Inc.: Citizens United, McDonald, and the Future of Corporate Constitutional Rights," 86 New York University Law Review 887 (2011). www
  • "Racial Cartels and the Thirteenth Amendment Enforcement Power," 100 Kentucky Law Journal 23 (2011). www
  • "Retail Rebellion and the Second Amendment," 86 Indiana Law Journal 939 (2011). www
  • "Iqbal and Empathy," 78 University of Missouri-Kansas City Law Review 999 (2010).
  • "Guns as Smut: Defending the Home-Bound Second Amendment," 109 Columbia Law Review 1278 (2009).
  • "White Cartels, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the History of Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.,," 77 Fordham Law Review 999 (2008). www

Book Sections

  • "Prohibitions on Private Armies in Seven State Constitutions," in New Histories of Gun Rights and Regulation: Essays on the Place of Guns in American Law and Society, Joseph Blocher, Jacob D. Charles & Darrell A. H. Miller eds. (Oxford University Press, 2023).
  • "The Expressive Second Amendment," in Guns in Law, Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas & Martha M. Umphrey eds. (University of Massachusetts Press, 2019).
  • "The Janus of Civil Rights," in The Greatest and Grandest Act: The Civil Rights Act of 1866 from Reconstruction to Today, Christian Samito ed. (Southern Illinois University Press, 2018).
  • "A Thirteenth Amendment Agenda for the Twenty-First Century: Of Promises, Power and Precaution," in The Promises of Liberty: The History and Contemporary Relevance of the Thirteenth Amendment, Alexander Tsesis ed. (Columbia University Press, 2010).

Other Publications

  • "Bruen and Constitutional Gnosticism," Balkinization, December 1, 2022. www
  • "Facts Still Matter, Even Before This Supreme Court," Newsweek, October 2022 (with Rosanna Smart & Andrew R. Morral). www
  • "State Gun Regulations Are a Messy Patchwork. The Supreme Court's Bruen Decision Won't Help," The Hill, August 20, 2022 (with Rosanna Smart & Andrew R. Morral). www
  • "The Next Front in the Fight Over Guns," The Washington Post, July 1, 2022. www
  • "A Supreme Court Head-Scratcher: Is a Colonial Musket 'Analogous to an AR-15?," New York Times, July 1, 2022.
  • "Conservatives Sound Like Anti-racists - When the Cause is Gun Rights," The Washington Post, October 27, 2021. www
  • "SCOTUS Taking Up 2nd Amendment Case Could Mean Cuts to Broad Swaths of Gun Regulations," Talking Points Memo, April 29, 2021 (with Joseph Blocher). www
  • "'Lineal Descendant' Analysis in Second Amendment Litigation," Harvard Law Review Blog, April 7, 2021. www
  • "Gun Laws Were Meant to Ban Private Militants. Now, Our Hands Are Tied," Washington Post, September 2, 2020. www
  • "A Simplistic Interpretation of "Defund the Police" May Embolden Vigilantes," Newsday, June 30, 2020. www
  • "Guard These True Monuments to Martin Luther King Jr.," Newsday, March 31, 2018.
  • "The Second Amendment and Second-Class Rights," Harvard Law Review Blog, March 8, 2018. www

Presentations
  • Presenter, “Originalism’s Selection Problem,” William & Mary Law School, Symposium on Jack M. Balkin, Memory and Authority (2024), Williamsburg, VA (March 29, 2024)
  • Presenter, “Falsifying Tradition,” University of Arizona 2024 National Conference of Constitutional Law Scholars, Tucson, AZ (March 4, 2024)
  • Panelist, “Teaching Stare Decisis – From the Warren Court (and Before) to the Roberts Court (and Beyond),” AALS, Washington, DC (Jan. 2024)
  • Presenter, “Falsifying Tradition,” Loyola Law School, Constitutional Law Colloquium, Chicago, IL (Nov. 2023)
  • Panelist, “Rethinking Race in American Legal Education,” American Society for Legal History, Philadelphia, PA (Oct. 2023)
  • Panelist, “Text and (What Kind of) History?”, Stanford Constitutional Law Center, Stanford, CA (May 2023)
  • Presenter, “Technology, Tradition, and ‘The Terror of the People’”, Northwestern Law School Workshop, Chicago, IL (May 2023)
  • Presenter, “Manufacturing Outliers,” University of Houston Law Center Workshop, Houston, TX (Feb. 2023)
  • Presenter, “Manufacturing Outliers,” University of Chicago Public Law Workshop, Chicago, IL (Oct. 2022)
  • Presenter, “Manufacturing Outliers,” University of Colorado Colloquium, Boulder, CO (Oct. 2022)
  • Presenter, Firearms Research Roundtable, NCSL, Denver, CO (Oct. 2022)
  • Presenter, “Our Right to Bear Arms: A History of America’s Most Debated Amendment,” United States Capitol Historical Society (July 2022)
  • Panelist, 2021-2022 ACS National Supreme Court Review (June 2022)
  • Presenter, “Estoppel by Nonviolence,” St. John’s University School of Law Faculty Workshop (March 2022)
  • Panelist, “Violence and Non-Delegation,” Guns, Violence and Democracy, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA (March 2022)
  • Moderator, Privatizing the Gun Debate, Duke Law School, Durham, NC (March 2022)
  • Moderator, Race and Guns, Duke Law School, Durham, NC (Nov. 2021)
  • Panelist, Loyola University Chicago School of Law/George Washington University Law School, 12th Annual Constitutional Law Colloquium, Washington, DC (Nov. 2021)
  • Panelist, “The 2nd Amendment at the Supreme Court: ‘700 Years of History’ and the Modern Effects of Guns in Public (Oct. 2021)
  • Panelist, “Guns vs. Speech: Does the 2nd Amendment Threaten the 1st?,” Brennan Center for Justice (Sept. 2021)
  • Moderator, “Corpus Linguistics and the Second Amendment,” Duke Law School, Duke Center for Firearms Law (June 2021)
  • Moderator, “Second Amendment and the Monopoly of Violence,” Duke Law School (Apr. 2021)
  • Moderator, “The Future of Qualified Immunity,” Duke Law School, Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Symposium (Apr. 2021)
  • Presenter, “Second Amendment Equilibria,” Indiana University Workshop (Feb. 2021)
  • Presenter, “Second Amendment Equilibria,” University of Arizona Workshop (Feb. 2021)
  • Panelist, “Second Amendment Equilibria,” Constitutional Law Workshop, Loyola Law School Chicago (Nov. 2020)
  • Symposium Panelist, “The Second Amendment’s Next Chapter,” Northwestern University (Oct. 2020)
  • Panelist, “Policing in America: Past and Present,” Duke University, Durham, NC (July 2020)
  • Presenter, The University of Chicago Symposium on Gun Violence, Chicago, IL (Mar. 2020)
  • Debater, 36th Annual Jefferson B. Fordham Debate, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (Sept. 2019)
  • Presenter, “Cities and Constitutional Change,” Amending America’s Unwritten Conference, Boston College, Boston, MA (May 2019)
  • Panelist, “Gun Violence: Law, Politics, and Public Policy,” Marshall M. Criser Distinguished Symposium at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL (April 2019)
  • Speaker, “History of Gun Rights and Regulations,” National History Center, Congressional Briefing, Washington, DC (March 2019)
  • Panelist, “Bill of Rights Journal Symposium: Constitutional Rights: Intersections, Synergies, and Conflicts,” Williamsburg, VA. (March 2019)
  • Conference Organizer and Panelist, “Reconstruction,” Duke University Law School (March 2019)
  • Keynote Speaker (with Joseph Blocher), “The Second Amendment as Positive Law,” The Second Amendment 228 Years Later, Annual Law & Society Symposium, Charleston Law Review/Riley Institute at Furman, Charleston, SC (Feb. 2019)
  • Panelist, “Judicial Courage, Judicial Heroes and the Civil Rights Movement,” AJEI/ECAPI 2018 Summit, Atlanta, GA (Nov. 2018)
  • Speaker, “Fourteenth Amendment Sesquicentennial – Origins, Evolution, and Enduring Relevance,” National Bar Association, 93d Annual Judicial Convention, New Orleans, La. (Aug. 2018)
  • Presenter, “Enforcing a Bill of Rights: Lessons from the American Experience,” W.G. Hart Legal Workshop, London, UK (June 2018)
  • Speaker, “Fourteenth Amendment Sesquicentennial – Origins, Evolution, and Enduring Relevance,” Judges Retreat, U.S. District Court for the District of Minn. (June 2018)
  • Panelist, “The Story of the Fourteenth Amendment and America’s Second Founding,” National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, PA (April 2018)
  • Panelist, “The Tenth Anniversary of Heller,” Teleforum Federalist Society, Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group (April 2018)
  • Panelist, “The Second Amendment and Second Class Rights,” Southern Illinois University School of Law, Carbondale, IL (April 2018)
  • Panelist, “American Universities, Monuments, and the Legacies of Slavery,” Provost Symposium, Duke University (March 2018)
  • Speaker, “The Positive Second Amendment,” Simon Lecture, Loyola University School of Law, Chicago, IL (March 2018)
  • Speaker, “The Civil Rights of 1866,” Duke BLSA Black History Month Series, Duke Law School (Feb. 2018)
  • Moderator, “Guns in American Society,” Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT (Oct. 2017)
  • Speaker, “The Positive Thirteenth Amendment,” American Constitution Society Constitution Day Address, Duke Law School (Sept. 2017)
  • Moderator, “Religious Commitment and the Profession,” Duke Law School (Sept. 2017)
  • Panelist, “Section 1983 & Qualified Immunity,” Federal Judicial Center, Cleveland, OH (May 2017)
  • Panelist, “Counteracting Islamophobia: Rights, Policy, and Next Steps,” Duke Law School (Feb. 2017)
  • Moderator, “Class Action Settlement Conference,” Center for Judicial Studies, San Diego, CA (Oct. 2016)
  • Panelist, “Guns and the Supreme Court: The Influence of History,” Aspen Institute, Washington DC (Sept. 2016)
  • Debater, “The Second Amendment Should Be Amended,” Berkeley Forum, University of California, Berkeley, CA (Aug. 2016)
  • Organizer, with Joseph Blocher and Eric Ruben of the Brennan Center for Justice, “The Second Generation of Second Amendment Law and Policy,” NYU/Brennan Center, NYC, NY (April 2016)
  • Panelist, “Gun Control: Past, Present and Future,” Duke Law School (March 2016)
  • Organizer, Panel Honoring Justice Antonin Scalia, Duke Law School (Feb. 2016)
  • Organizer and Panelist, “The Thirteenth Amendment and Civil Rights: A Celebration of 150 Years,” Duke Law School (Nov. 2015)
  • Panelist, “Protecting the Right to Bear Arms: History and Challenges,” Heritage Foundation/Georgetown Law Center, Washington, DC (Nov. 2015)
  • Presenter, “The Declaration of Independence as a Continuity Tender,” at “The Declaration of Independence and the Nation that Followed,” National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, PA (April 2015)
  • Panelist, “Race and Firearms: A Conversation with Historian Clayton Cramer and Duke Law Professor Darrell Miller,” Duke Law School (April 2015)
  • Moderator, “Pluralism in the Private Sector,” Duke Law School (Feb. 2015)
  • Coordinator, Moderator, and Panelist, “Teach-In on Policing, Civil Rights, and Race,” Duke Law School (Feb. 2015)
  • Presenter, “The City as a Self-Defense Institution,” The Fordham Comparative Urban Law Conference, London, England (June 2014)
  • Panelist, “Preventing Gun Violence: The Problem, Solutions, and What the Second Amendment Allows,” ABA/William Mitchell Law School, St. Paul, MN (June 2014)
  • Presenter, “Second Amendment Institutions,” Brooklyn Law School Workshop (April 2014)
  • Moderator, “Hobby Lobby, Healthcare and Religious Expression,” Duke Law School (March 2014)
  • Presenter, “Guns and Roses: The Past, Present, and Future of Firearm Rights and Regulations in North Carolina,” North Carolina Bar Association CLE Program (March 2014)
  • Panelist, “Locked & Loaded: Charlotte Law Review's Symposium on Gun Rights and Gun Control,” Charlotte Law School (March 2014)
  • Panelist, “Second Amendment Traditionalism and Desuetude,” Duke Law School Roundtable on Custom, Convention, and Tradition in Constitutional Law (Nov. 2013)

Works in Progress
  • The Second Amendment: Gun Rights and Regulation (Foundation Press, forthcoming) (with Joseph Blocher, Jacob D. Charles, and Jody L. Madeira).

Additional Activities

Educational and Civic Activities

  • Council Member, American Law Institute (2024-present)
  • Duke University Review Committee for Dean Kerry Abrams (2021)
  • Faculty Director, A.B. Duke Memorial Scholarship (2018-2021)
  • Office of University Scholars and Fellows, Duke University (2015-2021)
  • Faculty consultant for Rhodes, Marshall & Mitchell scholarships
  • University Judicial Board (2019-2023; Chair 2021-2023)
  • Advisor, Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy (2015-present)
  • Entry Level Appointments Committee, Duke Law School (2016-2017, 2017-2018, Chair 2018-2019, ex-officio 2020-2021, ex-officio 2021-2022)
  • Lateral Appointments Committee, Duke Law School (2013-2104, 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2023-2024)
  • Clerkships Committee, Duke Law School (2015-2016)
  • Workshop Committee, Duke Law School (2019-2020, 2020-2021, ex officio 2021-2022)
  • Admissions Committee, Duke Law School (2014-2015, 2017-2018)
  • Academic Council, Duke University (2015-2020)
  • Reporter, Civil Justice Committee, N.C. Comm’n on the Admin. of Law & Justice (2015-2016)

Memberships

  • American Law Institute
  • Life Member, U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference
  • American Bar Association
  • Bar Admissions: State of Ohio, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio; U.S. District Court, Southern District of Ohio