Experts

Richard C. Schragger

Fast Facts

  • Published in the Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Virginia, and Michigan law reviews
  • Clerked for Dolores Sloviter, then-chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
  • Expertise in property law, land use, urban law and policy, constitutional law, church and state

Areas Of Expertise

  • Domestic Affairs
  • Religion
  • Social Issues
  • Governance
  • Founding and Shaping of the Nation

Richard C. Schragger joined the University of Virginia Law School faculty in 2001 and was named the Perre Bowen Professor in 2013. His scholarship focuses on the intersection of constitutional law and local government law, federalism, urban policy, and the constitutional and economic status of cities. He also writes about law and religion. He has authored articles on the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses, the role of cities in a federal system, local recognition of same-sex marriage, takings law and economic development, and the history of the anti-chain store movement. Schragger has published in the Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Virginia, and Michigan law reviews, among others. He teaches property, local government law, urban law and policy, and church and state.

Schragger received an MA in legal theory from University College London and received his JD, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He was a supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review. After clerking for Dolores Sloviter, then-chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Schragger joined the Washington, D.C., firm Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin, where he practiced for two years.

Schragger has been a visiting professor at Quinnipiac University, Georgetown University, NYU, the University of Chicago, and Tel Aviv University. He was the Samuel Rubin Visiting Professor at Columbia University. He is the author of City Power: Urban Governance in a Global Age (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Richard C. Schragger News Feed

"The issue in the Richmond Lee case is what we call private law, which is that there's a property claim being made here that promises were made by the state to private property owners over 100 years ago," said Richard Schragger, a professor of law at the University of Virginia. "When the state took the property and accepted the statue, it made promises to local landowners that it would keep the statue intact in perpetuity. ... It's like a claim that your neighbor promised you that, say you live in a homeowners association, that they would never use their property to build a gas station on it."
Richard Schragger NBC News
The U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been at best fragmented and incomplete. At worst, it is incompetent and disastrous. Critics say the fault lies largely in the lack of a unified competent national response to the crisis, though some are thankful that states and cities have some independent authority, for at least it means that governors and mayors can act when the federal government fails to do so.
Richard C. Schragger Richmond Times-Dispatch
Has federalism helped or hindered the U.S. response to COVID-19? What is COVID-19 revealing about federalism and effective democracy? Join Rich Schragger (UVA Law), Sheila Foster (Georgetown Law), and Charles Hartgrove (Weldon Cooper Center, Virginia Institute of Government) to discuss the government's response to the pandemic, the constitutional and legal issues that have arisen as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, and the relationship between local, state, and federal actors during a national and global crisis. Miller Center Director and CEO Bill Antholis will moderate.
Richard Schragger Miller Center Presents
Today, Virginia’s local governments need authorization from the statehouse to do almost anything: regulate scooters in their communities, determine the salaries of their own city councilors, set fees for local law libraries, adopt “open container” laws, tax plastic bags, decide when the local school year should start and end, encourage bike use, or promote affordable housing, to name just a few.
Richard Schragger Richmond Times-Dispatch