Susan P. Crawford (born February 27, 1963) is an American professor. She is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

. She served as President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

's Special Assistant for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (2009) and is a columnist for

WIRED Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

. She is a former board member of

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several dat ...

, the founder of OneWebDay, and a legal scholar. Her research focuses on telecommunications and information law.

Early life and education

Crawford was born in 1963 and grew up in

Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

, where she attended

Santa Monica High School Santa Monica High School, officially abbreviated to Samohi or SMHS, is a public high school in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1891, it changed location several times in its early years before settling into its present campus at 601 Pico Bo ...

, and played

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

in the "Samohi" orchestra. Crawford received her B.A. (

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...

) and J.D. from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

. While at

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

, Crawford was the principal violist in the Yale Symphony Orchestra and continues her daily practice and occasionally performs publicly.

Career

After earning her J.D. degree, Crawford served as a

law clerk A law clerk, judicial clerk, or judicial assistant is a person, often a lawyer, who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by Legal research, researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial ...

for

Judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

Raymond J. Dearie of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and was a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

) until the end of 2002, when she left that firm to become a professor. After first teaching at Cardozo School of Law in New York City, Crawford became a visiting professor at the

University of Michigan Law School The University of Michigan Law School (branded as Michigan Law) is the law school of the University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1859, the school offers Master of Laws (LLM), Master of Comparati ...

in the fall of 2007. After visiting at

Yale Law School Yale Law School (YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824. The 2020–21 acceptance rate was 4%, the lowest of any law school in the United ...

in the spring of 2008, she was admitted to the faculty at the University of Michigan Law School. On July 1, 2010, Crawford rejoined the faculty at Cardozo, and also commenced as a Visiting Research Collaborator at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton. In 2012, Crawford visited Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government as the Stanton Professor of the First Amendment and also was a visiting professor at

. Since 2015 she has been on the faculty of Harvard Law School. In 2015, ''

Politico ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American political digital newspaper company founded by American banker and media executive Robert Allbritton in 2007. It covers politics and policy in the Unit ...

'' named Crawford (along with scholars Marvin Ammori and

Tim Wu Timothy Shiou-Ming Wu (born 1971 or 1972) is a Taiwanese-American legal scholar who served as Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy at the United States from 2021 to 2023. He is also a professor of law at Colum ...

) as one of its top 50 thinkers of the year, citing her contributions to the

net neutrality Net neutrality, sometimes referred to as network neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering User (computing), users and online content providers consistent tra ...

movement.

Internet activism

Crawford served as a member of the board of directors for

from 2005 to 2008. In 2005 she founded OneWebDay - a global celebration of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. She is known as a champion of

, and has written on many other current policy issues. In 2012,

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...

published her book, '' Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age.'' In April 2014, Crawford proposed that a possible solution to

concerns may be

municipal broadband A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

. Crawford was critical of the FCC's 2017 decision to end net neutrality, stating that the ruling was "handing the power to choose winners and losers online to about five companies."

Public service

Crawford and Kevin Werbach served on the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

Review team in the Obama transition. In early 2009, Crawford was appointed the President's Special Assistant for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy. In October 2009, it was announced that she would step down when her one-year sabbatical from the University of Michigan ended in January 2010. In October 2011, Crawford was appointed to Mayor Bloomberg's Council on Technology and Innovation.

Awards

* ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is an American business magazine published monthly in print and online, focusing on technology, business, and design. It releases six print issues annually. History ''Fast Company'' was founded in November 1995 by Alan Webb ...

'' – Top 100 Global Thinkers (2013) * ''Prospect'' Magazine – Top Ten Brains of the Digital Future (2011) *

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

– Tech 40: Most Influential Minds in Tech (2013) *

–Top 50 Thinkers of the Year (2015)

Books

* * * *

References

External links

Susan P. Crawford's website
;Video *
Speaker series with Susan Crawford on U.S. Telecommunications Policy
Google video, Dec 14, 2007.
"Rethinking Broadband"
Personal Democracy Forum conference on Jun 4 2010.
"Susan Crawford on Why U.S. Internet Access is Slow, Costly and Unfair"
''

Moyers & Company ''Moyers & Company'' was a commentary and interview television show hosted by Bill Moyers, and broadcast via syndication on public television stations in the United States. The weekly show covered current affairs affecting everyday Americans, a ...

'', PBS, February 8, 2013
"After Words with Susan Crawford"
'' Book TV'', ''

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American Cable television in the United States, cable and Satellite television in the United States, satellite television network, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a Non ...

'', Jun 27, 2013
"Responsive Cities"
''Responsive Cities'', ''2014 Knight-Civic Media Conference'', Jun 23, 2014 ;Articles
ARTICLES BY SUSAN P CRAWFORD
Bloomberg View 2011–2012
Transporting Communications
Boston University Law Review, Volume 89 Number 3 - June 2009
WIRED author - Susan Crawford

Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

magazine articles February 2012 to present. {{DEFAULTSORT:Crawford, Susan P. 1963 births Living people Obama administration personnel Yale Law School alumni American women lawyers University of Michigan Law School faculty Harvard Kennedy School faculty Harvard Law School faculty Cardozo School of Law faculty 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr partners American women legal scholars American legal scholars