William E. Thro is General Counsel of the University of Kentucky, former Solicitor General of Virginia, and a constitutional scholar. Over the course of his career, he has served as chief legal officer for both a flagship research university and a public liberal arts college, litigated constitutional issues in the Supreme Court of the United States and lower appellate courts, taught courses on the Constitution at both the undergraduate and law school levels, and written extensively on constitutional law in education contexts in both the United States and South Africa. He is the recipient of Stetson University’s Kaplin Award for Higher Education Law & Policy Scholarship and the Education Law Association’s McGhehey Award (contributions to education law), a Fellow of the National Association of College & University Attorneys (scholarship concerning higher education law), and a Distinguished Research Fellow of the National Education Finance Academy (contributions to education finance). He is President-Elect of the National Education Finance Academy (President in 2022-23), past President of the Education Law Association, Chair of the General Counsel Advisory Committee of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, and a member of the NCAA General Counsel Advisory Board.
A native of Kentucky, he received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Hanover College. In addition to receiving the Crowe Citation as the outstanding male in his class, he was the first Hanover student to become a Harry S. Truman Scholar. He earned a graduate degree with honours from the University of Melbourne while attending as a Rotary Foundation International Ambassadorial Scholar. His law degree is from the University of Virginia where he was a published member of the VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW and research assistant to constitutional law professor A.E. Dick Howard. He began his legal career as a judicial clerk to the late Judge Ronald E. Meredith of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky in Louisville.