Distinguished Faculty Award

Most Recent Winner

Professor Richard F. Duncan

Professor Duncan, Sherman S. Welpton, Jr. Professor of Law and Warren R. Wise Professor of Law, joined the faculty in 1979. He received his B.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) in 1973. In 1976, he received his J.D. degree from the Cornell Law School, where he served on the Board of Editors of the Cornell Law Review. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1977. From 1976-79, he was associated with White & Case, a New York City law firm.

Professor Duncan teaches Property, Constitutional Law, and First Amendment. He is a passionate and enthusiastic classroom teacher, whose style is not so much Socratic Dialogue as Socratic Performance Art. He spends most of his passion and energy teaching, writing, and speaking about social justice issues such as the right-to-life, religious liberty, freedom of speech, the pursuit of happiness, and other inalienable rights and liberties. He has spoken and debated at nearly 100 law schools on numerous issues concerning social justice and constitutional law. He loves teaching at Nebraska Law, especially in Room 113, which he claims to own by adverse possession. His favorite legal idea is “first come rights, then comes government to secure those rights.”