Benjamin Pontz
2024 Harvard Law School graduate
Benjamin Pontz is a third-year student at Harvard Law School, where he serves as Senior Articles Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and President of the Harvard Federalist Society. The recipient of the Dean’s Scholar Award in the First Amendment, Pontz will clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit with Judge Raymond M. Kethledge and on the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky with Judge Benjamin B. Beaton. Previously, he earned a Master’s Degree in Politics from the University of Manchester on a Fulbright Scholarship, graduating with the highest grade in his program, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Public Policy from Gettysburg College, summa cum laude and co-salutatorian.
Dean’s Scholar Prize in Constitutional Law: First Amendment
Best Brief Award, Legal Research & Writing Appellate Advocacy Program
Billy Nuttall Prize for Social Justice
First Amendment Policy & Politics
First Amendment Policy & Politics offers an in-depth investigation into First Amendment jurisprudence and its effect on public policy and political conflicts within the United States. During the semester, students will investigate the origins and evolution of First Amendment disputes throughout the history of the United States. This text…
“Pontz was accepted to Harvard during his senior year, but he opted to defer his acceptance one year to attend the University of Manchester in England as a Fulbright Scholar. His dissertation, “A Political Devolution: Institutional Capacity and the Case of Greater Manchester,” won the inaugural Billy Nuttall Prize for Social Justice.”
“[Benjamin Pontz] graduated summa cum laude and class salutatorian from Gettysburg College in 2020 with a double major in political science and public policy and a minor in music, and he completed a master’s degree in governance and public policy on a Fulbright Scholarship from the University of Manchester in 2021, where he studied institutional legitimacy in the context of regional devolution and earned the highest grade point average in his degree program.”