Adrian Vermeule

In an article in The Atlantic Monthly in March 2020, Vermeule suggests that originalism – the idea that the meaning of the American Constitution was fixed at the time of its enactment, which has been the principal legal theory of conservative judges and legal scholars for the past 50 years, but which Vermeule now characterizes as merely "a useful rhetorical and political expedient" – has outlived its usefulness and needs to be replaced by what he calls "common-good constitutionalism". Under this theory of jurisprudence, the moral values of the religious right would be imposed on the American people whether they, as a whole, believe in them or not.

based on the principles that government helps direct persons, associations, and society generally toward the common good, and that strong rule in the interest of attaining the common good is entirely legitimate. ... This approach should take as its starting point substantive moral principles that conduce to the common good, principles that officials (including, but by no means limited to, judges) should read into the majestic generalities and ambiguities of the written Constitution. These principles include respect for the authority of rule and of rulers; respect for the hierarchies needed for society to function; solidarity within and among families, social groups, and workers’ unions, trade associations, and professions; appropriate subsidiarity, or respect for the legitimate roles of public bodies and associations at all levels of government and society; and a candid willingness to "legislate morality –indeed, a recognition that all legislation is necessarily founded on some substantive conception of morality, and that the promotion of morality is a core and legitimate function of authority. Such principles promote the common good and make for a just and well-ordered society.

is certainly not to maximize individual autonomy or to minimize the abuse of power (an incoherent goal in any event), but instead to ensure that the ruler has the power needed to rule well ... Just authority in rulers can be exercised for the good of subjects, if necessary even against the subjects’ own perceptions of what is best for them — perceptions that may change over time anyway, as the law teaches, habituates, and re-forms them. Subjects will come to thank the ruler whose legal strictures, possibly experienced at first as coercive, encourage subjects to form more authentic desires for the individual and common goods, better habits, and beliefs that better track and promote communal well-being.

Elliot Kaufman, writing in the conservative magazine National Review, has described Vermeule as a "reactionary" and an "illiberal" following in the footsteps of German Nazi thinker Carl Schmitt. In Kaufman's view, Vermeule's illiberalism is "dangerous." The American philosopher Brian Leiter has described Vermeule as a "run-of-the-mill legal conservative" who found an intellectual home among other "reactionary Catholics." Fellow law professor Rick Hills has been much harsher in his criticism, describing Vermeule's recent writings as a kind of "anti-liberal chic," or "a really cheap way to signal one’s willingness to offend without putting any specific cards on the table about one’s own specific views about, say, the acceptability of locking up demonstrators who offend the regime in power."

Vermeule believes that legal change can only came about through cultural improvements. In an interview in 2016 after his conversion to Catholicism, Vermeule said,

Vermeule was raised as an Episcopalian, abandoning the denomination in college, but returning to it later in life. He announced his conversion to Catholicism in 2016. He said in an October 2016 interview that the logic behind his Catholic beliefs is inspired by John Henry Newman, and added:

In 2015, Vermeule co-founded the book review magazine The New Rambler.

eschews, and attempts to transcend, the main elements of the long-standing debates over methods that courts should use to interpret statutes and the Constitution ... he sees no need to resolve apparently burning questions such as whether courts are bound by what legislatures write, or by what legislatures intend ... For Vermeule, everything comes down to a simple but withering cost–benefit analysis.

Raised a Protestant, despite all my thrashing and twisting, I eventually couldn't help but believe that the apostolic succession through Peter as the designated leader and primus inter pares is in some logical or theological sense prior to everything else – including even Scripture, whose formation was guided and completed by the apostles and their successors, themselves inspired by the Holy Spirit.

In 2007, Vermeule said about the United States Supreme Court that it should stay away from controversial political matters, such as abortion laws and anti-sodomy statutes and defer to Congress, as the elected representatives of the people, except in extremely obvious cases. This would require both liberals and conservative to step back and realize that the benefits of such a court would outweigh the drawbacks for both. Vermeule was thus suggesting "a kind of arms-control agreement, a tacit deal."

Vermeule became professor of law at Harvard Law School in 2006, was named John H. Watson Professor of Law in 2008, and was named Ralph S. Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law in 2016. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012, at the age of 43.

Vermeule clerked for Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia from 1994 to 1995, and for Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in 1998 and was twice awarded the Graduating Students' Award for Teaching Excellence (2002, 2004).

Vermeule graduated from Harvard College (AB, 1990) and Harvard Law School (JD, 1993).

Cornelius Adrian Comstock Vermeule (/v ər ˈ m juː l / , born May 2, 1968) is an American legal scholar, currently a law professor at Harvard Law School. He founded the book review magazine The New Rambler.

Vermeule was born April 2, 1968, into a family of prominent scholars. His mother, Emily Vermeule, a classical scholar, was the Doris Zemurray Stone Professor at Radcliffe College of Harvard University. His father, Cornelius Clarkson Vermeule III, served for many years as Curator of the Classical Department at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. His sister, Blakey Vermeule, is a literary scholar and a Professor of English at Stanford University.