Stephen D. Solomon
Carter Journalism Institute, Associate Director
Business and Economic Reporting, Director
Stephen Solomon’s most recent book, Ellery’s Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition and Sparked the Battle over School Prayer, explores the landmark 1963 case (Abington School District v. Schempp) in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that organized prayer and Bible reading in the public schools violated the First Amendment. The case still inflames passions today as Americans on the right and left debate what role, if any, that religion — prayer, creationism, intelligent design, and the Ten Commandments — should play in the public schools.
Solomon is associate director of the Carter Journalism Institute. He is also the founder and director of the NYU Master of Arts program in Business and Economic Reporting. He received his B.A. degree from Pennsylvania State University and his law degree from Georgetown University. His academic specialty is First Amendment law, and he teaches courses on freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the Institute as well as in the Freshman Honors Program in the College of Arts and Science. He was awarded NYU’s Golden Dozen Award for excellence in teaching.
Solomon was a writer at Fortune magazine and has written for many national publications, including The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, and The Nation. His articles have won the two most prestigious awards for business writing, the Gerald Loeb Award and the John Hancock Award for Excellence, as well as the Sidney Hillman Prize. Professor Solomon is also co-author of Building 6: The Tragedy at Bridesburg, an investigation of the working conditions that caused the deaths of 54 men from lung cancer at Rohm and Haas, a Fortune 500 chemical company in Philadelphia. The victims’ families later won a $25 million settlement from the company.
