Ramzi Kassem

Guest Author

Ramzi Kassem is a Professor of Law at the City University of New York, where he is the founding director of CLEAR (@CUNY_CLEAR), which offers free legal services to communities in New York City and beyond that are targeted by the government under the guise of national security and counterterrorism. His writing, teaching, and clinical legal practice all aim to contest the expressions and excesses of the sprawling U.S. security state, both domestically and abroad.

Professor Kassem argued Tanzin v. Tanvir before the U.S. Supreme Court, a landmark civil rights case challenging the federal government’s abuse of watchlists, resulting in a unanimous decision for his clients. He was named to the inaugural class of Freedom Scholars in 2020 and is a Non-Resident Fellow of the Quincy Institute. In addition to law review articles and book chapters, Professor Kassem’s writing has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Guardian, and other outlets. Before joining the CUNY faculty, Professor Kassem taught law at Fordham and Yale.