Constitution Day commemorates the formation & signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787.

Annette Gordon-Reed ’81

Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University
Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

Annette Gordon-Reed is an author, historian and legal scholar. She has written four books, edited one volume of essays, along with numerous articles and chapters in books. She published her first book, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy in 1997. In 2008, Gordon-Reed published The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won 16 book awards, including the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in history and the National Book Award. Gordon-Reed was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library. For her original and groundbreaking research on Jefferson, Monticello and slavery, Gordon-Reed won a MacArthur "Genius Award" and a National Humanities Medal in 2010. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She now teaches law at Harvard Law School, is a professor of history at Harvard University, and holds the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professorship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

A history major at Dartmouth, Gordon-Reed graduated with high distinction in 1981 and earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1984 where she was member of the Harvard Law Review. She has served as a member of the Dartmouth Alumni Council, serving on the Council's Enrollment & Admissions and Student Affairs Committees.