Samuel Bagenstos

Samuel Robert Bagenstos (born 1970) is a professor of law at the University of Michigan, a job he returned to after serving for two years as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.
Bagenstos's work is in civil rights law, especially disability rights. He is the author of Law and the Contradictions of the Disability Rights Movement (Yale University Press 2009), and a Foundation Press casebook on Disability Law, along with numerous articles.
He has argued three Supreme Court cases, representing the plaintiff: Young v. United Parcel Service, 135 S. Ct 1338 (2015),in which the U.S. Supreme Court established new protections for pregnant workers, United States v. Georgia, 546 U.S. 151 (2006), in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, as applied in the case of a prisoner who used a wheelchair, and Chevron v. Echazabal, 536 U.S. 73 (2002), in which the Supreme Court rejected the plaintiffs argument that he should be the one to decide if chemicals in the workplace posed too much risk to his health, given that he had hepatitis.
Bagenstos graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1990, and then received his J.D. in 1993 from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude. He received the Fay Diploma (awarded to the person ranked first in the class) and was Articles Office Co-Chair for the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the Ninth Circuit for one year, and then joined the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He served as Law Clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1997/1998 Term. He has been a member of the faculty of Harvard Law School, and a visiting professor at UCLA School of Law and Michigan Law School. He was a professor of law from 2004 to 2009 at Washington University in St. Louis, and from 2007 to 2008, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development there.
As Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Bagenstos supervised the Civil Rights Division's appellate work, disability rights enforcement, and other matters. In the disability rights area, he has emphasized intensified enforcement of the Supreme Court's decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which requires that states provide services to people with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to their individual situation. He has also focused on ensuring that emerging technologies are accessible to people with disabilities.
Bagenstos has been married to Margo Schlanger since 1998.