Evan H. Caminker

Who is Evan H. Caminker?

Evan H. Caminker is a Dean Emeritus of the University of Michigan Law School. As Dean, he succeeded Jeffrey S. Lehman, who resigned to become president of Cornell University. Caminker was appointed Dean just as the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling upholding the constitutionality of the Law School's affirmative action admissions policies, which had been challenged in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Individual Rights.

Caminker earned a B.A. in political economy and environmental studies, summa cum laude, from the University of California-Los Angeles, and his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal. He clerked for Judge William A. Norris of the Ninth Circuit of Court of Appeals, and Justice William Brennan of the United States Supreme Court.

Prior to coming to the University of Michigan, Caminker was a faculty member at the UCLA School of Law. He has practiced law with the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles, and as a deputy assistant attorney general in the United States Department of Justice. As a scholar, his research is focused on constitutional law and the nature of judicial decision making. Caminker describes his background in his early years as "a born-and-raised, beach volleyball-playing, suntan-searching Los Angelino."