Mission Statement

Robert Katz is Professor of Law and John S. Grimes Faculty Fellow at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. He is also an Affiliate Faculty Member at Indiana University’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Center for Bioethics. He teaches courses in Antisemitism and the Law, the First Amendment, and Trusts and Estates. He is founder and director of the Center for the Study of Law and Antisemitism, an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Professor Katz earned his J.D. with honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as a Comments Editor on the *University of Chicago Law Review* and received the award for best law review comment. He holds an A.B. *magna cum laude* in Government from Harvard College, where he was awarded the departmental prize for the best thesis in political theory. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Stephen G. Breyer, then Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.  

Before joining the IU McKinney faculty in 2001, Professor Katz served as a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School and as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  

Professor Katz is the author of Antisemitism and the Law (Carolina Academic Press, 2025), the first treatise and casebook to examine how legal systems have both facilitated antisemitism and can be mobilized to combat it. The United Kingdom’s Crown Prosecution Service has cited him as a “renowned international legal expert on antisemitism law.”  Katz is a member of the ABA Presidential Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, co‑founder of the annual Law and Antisemitism Conference, and a member of the Academic Advisory Board for Justice, the legal magazine of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.  

His scholarship and advocacy have led to invited talks at Harvard Law School, the University of Chicago Law School, Notre Dame Law School, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law’s Legal Summit on Antisemitism,  and the inauguration of Gratz College's doctoral program in antisemitism studies, the world's first. In November 2025, he delivered the first keynote address at the International Prosecutors Summit on Antisemitism in The Hague, a gathering of prosecutors and legal experts from thirty‑three countries focused on strengthening the investigation and prosecution of antisemitic hate crimes. In March 2026, he will deliver the 34th Annual Pearl and Troy Feibel Lecture on Judaism and Law at The Ohio State University, hosted by its Melton Center for Jewish Studies. Previous lecturers have included Michael Walzer, Mark Tushnet, Sanford Levinson, and Paul Gewirtz.  

As a civil rights advocate, Professor Katz served as co‑counsel in *Stafford v. Carter* (S.D. Ind.), a class action on behalf of Indiana inmates infected with the hepatitis C virus. The Indiana Department of Correction settled the case by agreeing to fund antiviral treatment for infected inmates at a cost exceeding $80 million. He also served as co‑counsel in *Lee v. Pence* (S.D. Ind.), which successfully challenged Indiana’s ban on same‑sex marriage. In March 2015, he testified before the Indiana General Assembly’s House Judiciary Committee in opposition to proposed amendments to the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which he argued would authorize discrimination against LGBTQ individuals.  

Professor Katz serves on the Government Affairs Committee of the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council, providing expert guidance on issues including hate crimes legislation.