Michigan Law
Michigan Law Professor Samuel Bagenstos is the recipient of the 2025 President’s Award for Public Impact for his demonstrated commitment to public service, contributions to significantly impact society through national and state leadership, and efforts to address the challenges communities face every day.
U-M President Domenico Grasso will present the award at the President’s Symposium on Research Impact and Policy Leadership in March. This new event will feature an exhibit of public impact work from all colleges, schools, regional campuses, and some select centers.
Carolyn Kuranz, professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences and professor of applied physics, is the recipient of the President’s Award for National and State Leadership.
“Professors Bagenstos and Kuranz are shining examples of the transformative impact that U-M faculty make on the world around us with their scholarship and service,” Grasso said.
Bagenstos, the Frank G. Millard Professor of Law, specializes in civil rights, labor and employment law, health law, and governance.
He has advocated for farmworkers, disabled people facing discrimination when seeking lifesaving care, foster kids, seniors who need affordable medications, and all Americans during the pandemic.
“Professor Bagenstos’s work as a professor and public intellectual and leading critical government agencies during the COVID pandemic was instrumental in galvanizing our nationwide response in a time of crisis and ensuring access to medical care among the most vulnerable, embodying the President’s Award for Public Impact,” wrote his nominators, who included Ekow Yankah, the Law School’s associate dean for faculty and research.
During the Biden administration, Bagenstos served as general counsel to the Office of Management and Budget and then general counsel to the US Department of Health and Human Services. In those roles, he:
Played a central role in writing new, explicit regulations making clear that discrimination against disabled patients in medical decision making violated Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
Helped to draft and implement the American Rescue Plan Act, President Biden’s signature COVID relief law.
Helped build the infrastructure to get the then-new COVID vaccine shots in arms across the country. He led the drafting of regulations across the federal government to promote vaccinations and masking and helped multiple federal agencies get relief funds to state and local governments.
“I’ve tried to use my professional training to be able to help people in ways that I can, and obviously being a professor at the University of Michigan gives me a particular platform to help bring my expertise to the world at times when it’s really needed,” Bagenstos said. “I never thought of academic work as a purely inward-focused intellectual enterprise.
“I think that what I’m here to do is generate ideas that are hopefully going to be useful to the world, and sometimes I can make those ideas useful to the world by engaging very directly. And so that’s what I’ve tried to do the whole time I’ve been a professor.”
In an earlier stint with the federal government, Bagenstos was an appointee in the US Department of Justice, where he served as the principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights. He worked on the 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act regulations update and led the government’s enforcement of the US Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which guarantees people with disabilities the right to live and receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate.
In addition to Yankah, Bagenstos’s nomination was supported by Sharon Block of Harvard Law School; K. Sabeel Rahman of Cornell Law School; and Chiquita Brooks-LaSure of the Century Foundation.
Michigan Law Professor Samuel Bagenstos is the recipient of the 2025 President’s Award for Public Impact for his demonstrated commitment to public service, contributions to significantly impact society through national and state leadership, and efforts to address the challenges communities face every day.
U-M President Domenico Grasso will present the award at the President’s Symposium on Research Impact and Policy Leadership in March. This new event will feature an exhibit of public impact work from all colleges, schools, regional campuses, and some select centers.
Carolyn Kuranz, professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences and professor of applied physics, is the recipient of the President’s Award for National and State Leadership.
“Professors Bagenstos and Kuranz are shining examples of the transformative impact that U-M faculty make on the world around us with their scholarship and service,” Grasso said.
Bagenstos, the Frank G. Millard Professor of Law, specializes in civil rights, labor and employment law, health law, and governance.
He has advocated for farmworkers, disabled people facing discrimination when seeking lifesaving care, foster kids, seniors who need affordable medications, and all Americans during the pandemic.
“Professor Bagenstos’s work as a professor and public intellectual and leading critical government agencies during the COVID pandemic was instrumental in galvanizing our nationwide response in a time of crisis and ensuring access to medical care among the most vulnerable, embodying the President’s Award for Public Impact,” wrote his nominators, who included Ekow Yankah, the Law School’s associate dean for faculty and research.
During the Biden administration, Bagenstos served as general counsel to the Office of Management and Budget and then general counsel to the US Department of Health and Human Services. In those roles, he:
Played a central role in writing new, explicit regulations making clear that discrimination against disabled patients in medical decision making violated Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
Helped to draft and implement the American Rescue Plan Act, President Biden’s signature COVID relief law.
Helped build the infrastructure to get the then-new COVID vaccine shots in arms across the country. He led the drafting of regulations across the federal government to promote vaccinations and masking and helped multiple federal agencies get relief funds to state and local governments.
“I’ve tried to use my professional training to be able to help people in ways that I can, and obviously being a professor at the University of Michigan gives me a particular platform to help bring my expertise to the world at times when it’s really needed,” Bagenstos said. “I never thought of academic work as a purely inward-focused intellectual enterprise.
“I think that what I’m here to do is generate ideas that are hopefully going to be useful to the world, and sometimes I can make those ideas useful to the world by engaging very directly. And so that’s what I’ve tried to do the whole time I’ve been a professor.”
In an earlier stint with the federal government, Bagenstos was an appointee in the US Department of Justice, where he served as the principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights. He worked on the 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act regulations update and led the government’s enforcement of the US Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which guarantees people with disabilities the right to live and receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate.
In addition to Yankah, Bagenstos’s nomination was supported by Sharon Block of Harvard Law School; K. Sabeel Rahman of Cornell Law School; and Chiquita Brooks-LaSure of the Century Foundation.
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