In a ceremony held on December 10th, Robert P. George was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal in honor of his contributions to American public life. George is a Senior Fellow at the Witherspoon Institute and the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University. George is the director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University and sits on the Presidents Council on Bioethics. He was recently appointed to the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology.

A White House press release said the following: With wisdom and integrity, Dr. Robby George has brought forceful analytic clarity to the study of Americas ideals and institutions. He has helped strengthen our Nations system of ordered liberty by exploring enduring questions of American constitutional law and Western political theory. The United States honors Robby George for his many contributions to our civic life.

Professor Georges articles and review essays have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Review of Politics, the Review of Metaphysics, and the American Journal of Jurisprudence. He is a frequent contributor to First Things, where he is a member of the editorial advisory board, and has also written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Review, Touchstone, the Boston Review, City Journal, and the Times Literary Supplement.

Among his awards and prizes are the Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement, the Philip Merrill Award of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the Sidney Hook Award of the National Association of Scholars, the Richard M. Weaver Award for Scholarly Letters, the Paul Bator Award of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy, a Silver Gavel Award of the American Bar Association, and the Stanley Kelley, Jr. Teaching Award in Politics at Princeton. He was the 2007 John Dewey Lecturer in Philosophy of Law at Harvard.

Professor George serves on the boards of directors of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Institute for American Values, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, the Family Research Council, and the Center for Individual Rights. He serves on editorial boards of Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, the American Journal of Jurisprudence, the Journal of International Biotechnology Law, and Touchstone and First Things magazines. Professor George is general editor of New Forum Books, a Princeton University Press series of interdisciplinary works in law, culture, and politics.

In addition to his academic work, he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves as Of Counsel to the law firm of Robinson and McElwee.

A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, Professor George also earned a masters degree in theology from Harvard and a doctorate in philosophy of law from Oxford University. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Swarthmore, and received a Knox Fellowship from Harvard for graduate study in law and philosophy at Oxford. He holds honorary doctorates of law, letters, ethics, humane letters, civil law, and science.

The Witherspoon Institute is an independent research center that works to enhance public understanding of the moral foundations of free and democratic societies. Located in Princeton, New Jersey, the Institute promotes the application of fundamental principles of republican government and ordered liberty to contemporary problems through a variety of research and educational ventures. To support the Witherspoon Institute, please follow the contribution instructions or donate online via PayPal.