USD School of Law Professor Michael Ramsey Quoted and Cited by the U.S. Supreme Court
University of San Diego (USD) School of Law congratulates Warren Distinguished Professor of Law Michael Ramsey on being quoted and cited twice by the U.S. Supreme Court in its February 20, 2026 decision, Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch quoted Ramsey’s co-authored scholarship with Saikrishna Prakash, the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, writing, “[O]ne would think that the Constitution’s text ought to play the preeminent role in discerning the Constitution’s allocation of foreign affairs,” citing The Executive Power Over Foreign Affairs, 111 Yale L.J. 231 (2001). In the article, Ramsey and Prakash argue that modern scholarship has too often relinquished the Constitution’s text as a source for resolving foreign affairs controversies and instead propose a comprehensive framework grounded in textual analysis.
Justice Clarence Thomas, in a dissenting opinion, separately drew on Ramsey’s work, Foreign Affairs and the Jeffersonian Executive, 89 Minn. L. Rev. 1591 (2005), which was also co-authored with Prakash. In this article, the authors address leading objections to the theory that the Constitution’s vesting clause grants the President residual foreign affairs power and explain how critics rely on misunderstandings of 18th-century conceptions of executive authority.
Ramsey was named a University Professor for the 2024-2025 academic year, a university-wide honor recognizing outstanding scholarly achievement. A leading voice in constitutional and foreign affairs law, he currently serves as an advisor to the American Law Institute’s forthcoming Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. He was previously cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Justice Thomas’ concurrence in Fuld v. Palestinian Liberation Organization (U.S. Supreme Court, June 2025) and in Justice Sotomayor's dissent in Trump v. CASA, Inc. (U.S. Supreme Court, June 2025).
This recognition reflects the continued national impact of USD Law faculty and highlights the role of legal academia in shaping constitutional interpretations at the highest levels of the judiciary.
About the University of San Diego School of Law
Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest law and taxation.
USD School of Law is one of the 88 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 34th nationally among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 35th nationally in past-year faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.