Gerritt Wormhoudt Award

The Gerrit Wormhoudt Award for Student Scholarship

The Institute for Justice’s Gerrit Wormhoudt Award for Student Scholarship, named in memory of longtime IJ Board of Directors Member Gerrit Wormhoudt, is a $5,000 prize for the best student-written law-review Note, Comment, or Article that features extensive analysis of a case in which the Institute for Justice represented one of the parties.  This award is designed to stimulate wider academic discussion of the legal issues raised in IJ’s cutting-edge constitutional litigation.  

The Wormhoudt Award will be presented each fall, beginning in September of 2012, in recognition of the best student-written piece submitted for publication in the preceding academic year.  Interested students should email essays@ij.org with a Word file, PDF, or SSRN link to any eligible Notes, Comments, or Articles.  (The Institute for Justice reserves the right not to give an award in any given year.  In that instance, publications will remain eligible for the award in the following academic year.)

Below, you will find links to IJ’s case pages providing background information on specific cases that qualify an essay for the Wormhoudt Award.  Remember that Notes, Comments or Articles are eligible for the Award only if they contain a substantial discussion of the legal issues in a case in which the Institute for Justice actually represented parties, as distinct from cases in which the Institute for Justice only filed an amicus brief.

Economic Liberty

First Amendment

Property Rights

School Choice


If you have any questions regarding the Wormhoudt Award, please contact us at essays@ij.org.  Have you written a student-authored piece that is eligible for the Award?  Let us know at essays@ij.org.


Institute for Justice Center for Judicial Engagement Law-Student Essay Contest

For too long, the public debate over the role of the judiciary in American society has been consumed by a battle between two empty slogans: “judicial activism” and “judicial restraint.”  The Institute for Justice’s Center for Judicial Engagement seeks to change that debate:  Judges should not be “activist” (which is too often simply a code word for “a judge whose decision the speaker does not like”), nor should they be “restrained” (which is too often simply code for complete judicial abdication).  Instead, judges should be engaged—engaged in the process of applying the law to the actual facts of the case before them, including constitutional cases.  

The Center’s law-student essay contest seeks to reward the best law-student writing designed to persuade the general public of the virtues of judicial engagement.  Entrants should write an essay of no more than 2,000 words concerning this topic:

Recent debates over the role of the courts in reviewing legislative enactments have focused heavily on terminology:  specifically, whether we should be most concerned with courts that engage in “judicial activism” or whether, as the Eleventh Circuit wrote in striking down portions of the Affordable Care Act, in cases of legislative overreach, “the Constitution requires judicial engagement, not judicial abdication.”  In an essay aimed at a popular audience, discuss the role of the courts in American government and the differences among judicial engagement, judicial activism, and judicial abdication.

Winners will be those who most clearly and persuasively articulate the principles and importance of judicial engagement.  Further explanation of those principles and their application can be found at www.ij.org/cje.   

First prize will be a $3,000 award, along with a free trip to Washington, D.C. to receive your prize at IJ’s headquarters; second prize will net a $1,000 award; and third prize $500.

Students should email a Word version of their essay (no PDFs) to essays@ij.org no later than February 6, 2012.  Late entries will not be considered.  The Institute for Justice will announce winners by mid-April of 2012.