Historical Society of the New York Courts Names Dr. Julia Rose Kraut As Its New Director of Programs, Education, and Research

The Historical Society of the New York Courts has named Dr. Julia Rose Kraut as its new Director of Programs, Education, and Research. The unanimous vote was cast at the Society’s biannual meeting of the Board of Trustees on September 24, 2024, and she started in her new position on October 1, 2024.

Julia Rose Kraut holds a JD, as well as a Ph.D. in History, and she is a member of the New York State Bar. Dr. Kraut is a legal historian who specializes in immigration and First Amendment law and history. She is the author of Threat of Dissent: A History of Ideological Exclusion and Deportation in the United States (Harvard University Press, 2020), which is the first legal, social, and political history of the barring and expulsion of foreign noncitizens from the United States based on their political beliefs, expressions, and associations. The book traces this history from the Alien Friends Act of 1798 through the War on Terror. Dr. Kraut has received numerous grants and fellowships to support her research and writing, and she has delivered lectures on her work at various colleges, law schools, museums, and academic conferences. Dr. Kraut has also contributed chapters in edited volumes, including Whose America?: U.S. Immigration Policy since 1980 (University of Illinois Press, 2023) and Whistleblowing Nation: The History of National Security Disclosures and the Cult of State Secrecy (Columbia University Press, 2020).

Dr. Kraut began working with the Society in 2016, when she served as its inaugural Judith S. Kaye Fellow and taught a legal history course she designed Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, and the Empire State at Bard High School Early College in Manhattan and, a year later, in Queens. In this course, public high school students from across New York City learned how to read, analyze, and brief legal decisions and to place them in historical context, while understanding how laws have shaped history and paved the way for the nation’s current freedoms, protections, and challenges. Dr. Kraut also designed and taught a Law and Justice course for students at George Jackson Academy in Manhattan and served on the Society’s Education Committee. In 2022, she returned to Bard High School Early College for the Society and taught Preserving & Protecting Democracy in America: Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, & Civic Participation. She used this course as the basis for her creation of Building Informed Citizens Today for a Better Tomorrow: A Resource Toolkit for Teaching American Democracy & Government, an online resource available through the Society’s website containing lesson plans, classroom activities, videos, timelines, court opinions, and primary/secondary sources for secondary school teachers to use to teach civics, law, and history. In 2023, she became the Society’s inaugural Resident Education Fellow. In her new role as Director of Programs, Education, and Research, Dr. Kraut will work with Society staff and Board members on developing public programs and podcasts, editing and coordinating the publication of Judicial Notice, facilitating legal history and oral history projects, and expanding the Society’s educational programs.