Nathan Goetting
Professor, George Romney Institute for Law and Public Policy Director
Degrees
- Thomas M. Cooley Law School, Juris Doctor (Constitutional Law & Civil Rights Concentration)
- Western Michigan University, Master of Arts in Philosophy
- Aquinas College, Bachelor of Arts in General Education
Biography
Professor Goetting joined the faculty of Adrian College in 2008 and currently serves there as a Professor of Criminal Justice and Jurisprudence and the Director of the George W. Romney Institute for Law and Public Policy. His scholarship focuses on constitutional law and civil liberties.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in General Education from Aquinas College, a small liberal arts school in Grand Rapids, MI before earning a Master of Arts in Philosophy from Western Michigan University. He served as an intern for the Cooley Innocence Project while a student at Thomas M. Cooley Law School, where he spent two terms working on several rape and murder cases.
Professor Goetting has taught at three law schools, served as faculty advisor to The University of Toledo Law Review, and has published dozens of writings on legal issues, many dealing with freedom of expression and the rights of those accused of crimes. His work has been cited in leading law reviews and academic journals. For his publications on the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage cases, Professor Goetting won Adrian College’s Creative Activity, Research, and Scholarship Award (faculty-wide for best contribution to one’s field) in 2016.
He won the award again in 2024 for “The Supreme Court’s Actual Innocence Problem,” a presentation he gave at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences March 22, 2024 on the Supreme Court's failure to address the problem of wrongful convictions. The presentation was based on a series of eight articles he wrote for Discourse Magazine, which can be read here.
He won the Adrian College’s Ross Newsome Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2022 and served as an Assistant Coach on Adrian College's MIAA championship wrestling team in 2023.
Professor Goetting lives in Adrian, Michigan with his wife, Amanda; his sons, Lucas and Samuel; and his dogs Francie and Stewart. Outside the classroom, he enjoys reading, classic movies, and sports.
