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[Policy Scholars](/experts) 

# Roger Pilon 

Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies

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Roger Pilon is a senior fellow in the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies, which he founded in 1989 and directed until 2019; the inaugural holder emeritus of Cato’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies, Cato’s first endowed chair, established in 1998; and the publisher emeritus of the *[Cato Supreme Court Review](https://www.cato.org/supreme-court-review/2021-2022)*, which he founded in 2001. He served also as Cato’s vice president for legal affairs, which he was named in 1999.

Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of State, and the Department of Justice, and was a national fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. In 1989, the Bicentennial Commission presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution. In 2001, Columbia University’s School of General Studies awarded him its Alumni Medal of Distinction. Pilon lectures and debates at universities and law schools across the country and abroad, and he testifies often before Congress.

His writings have appeared in the *Wall Street Journal*, the *Washington Post*, the *New York Times*, the *Los Angeles Times*, *Legal Times*, *National Law Journal*, *Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy*, *Stanford Law and Policy Review*, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC’s *Nightline*, CBS’s *60 Minutes II*, Fox News, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, C‑SPAN, and other media.

Pilon holds a BA from Columbia University, an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago, and a JD from the George Washington University School of Law.

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##### Featured Book 

### [The Cato Pocket Constitution](https://www.cato.org/books/cato-pocket-constitution)

To encourage people everywhere to better understand and appreciate the principles of government that are set forth in America’s founding documents, the Cato Institute published this pocket edition (3.5″ x 5″) of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. With more than six million copies in print, this edition’s influence has been observed far and wide. It has been held up by senators at press conferences and by representatives during floor debate; found in federal judicial chambers across the country; appeared at conferences on constitutionalism in Russia, Iraq, and elsewhere; and sold at bookstores nationwide.

[Read about the Book](https://www.cato.org/books/cato-pocket-constitution)