John Fabian Witt

John Fabian Witt is Allen H. Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is the author of Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History,^[1] which won the 2013 Bancroft Prize in history of the Americas^[2] and, in 2020, American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19.^[3]

Biography

Witt received his B.A., his J.D., and his Ph.D, all from Yale. In 2001, he was awarded the John Addison Porter Prize for "The Accidental Republic: Amputee Workingmen, Destitute Widows, and the Remaking of American Law, 1866-1922."^[4] Before returning to teach at Yale, he was the George Welwood Murray Professor of Legal History at Columbia University. In 2007, he criticized the historical basis of John Yoo's theories.^[5] In April 2017, Witt was named the head of Davenport College, one of Yale's 14 residential colleges.