Former FTC commissioner in Supreme Court battle joins NYU

• Key insight: Former Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter is joining New York University's Center for Law and Public Trust after unsuccessfully challenging her firing by President Trump last year.
• Supporting data: The Supreme Court's ruling over the summer allows presidents to remove independent agency appointees without cause, overturning a precedent established in 1935.
• Forward look: The decision gives presidents greater control over what had been independent agencies, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., National Credit Union Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, potentially making regulatory policy more prone to partisan swings.

NEW YORK — A former financial regulator whose firing in 2025 ultimately led to a Supreme Court decision earlier this year overturning agency independence is joining New York University's Law School.

Former Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter joined New York University's Center for Law and Public Trust just months after the court sided with the administration, according to NYU's student newspaper.

"Rebecca Slaughter brings her experience at the highest levels of government in areas that include competition, consumer protection, and privacy," NYU Law spokesperson Michael Orey said. "Our many centers and institutes are home to leading experts across a wide range of disciplines and perspectives." 

Slaughter, a New York City native and Yale Law graduate, was fired by President Trump in March last year without cause — one of a number of other Democrats serving fixed terms on independent commissions that were dismissed by the President during the first months of his second term. Fellow FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya and two Democratic board members at the National Credit Union Administration were among the others to be dismissed in the purge. Slaughter and most of those other officials sued for their reinstatement, citing the longstanding precedent that established removal protections for political appointees at independent agencies in order to uphold independent agency decisionmaking. 

The Supreme Court's decision in July to overturn the longstanding precedent that insulated federal regulators from direct White House control over policy — while carving out an exception for the Federal Reserve — gives presidents greater influence over bank regulation and makes regulatory policy less durable, a shift scholars say could muddy banks' policy expectations and intensify regulatory regime swings after each presidential election.

Slaughter wrote that after having "spent the summer recovering from litigation limbo" she was excited to join NYU to help fight corruption, uphold the law and work on issues of economic justice. 

"The interdisciplinary work the Center is doing is among the most urgent of our time: fighting corruption, restoring the rule of law, and reimagining government so that it serves the people and not just the powerful," she wrote on Linkedin. "I am excited to use my experience working on issues of economic justice and corporate accountability at the FTC and in the Senate to contribute to those efforts."

Regulatory independence had been a hallmark of banking regulation for decades. The concept of a bipartisan, independent regulatory commission emerged and took root in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the establishment of agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, Interstate Commerce Commission and Federal Reserve. The idea was that Congress would entrust technical policy decisions to experts nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but who would enjoy policy independence for the entirety of their fixed terms.

The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of those agencies in the 1935 case Humphrey's Executor v. United States, which found that when agencies are performing quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial functions, their power is derived from non-executive authorities and therefore could exist outside of pure executive control.

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President Trump and his administration, however, have adopted a scholarly concept known as unitary executive theory, which holds that all executive power is vested in the president and thus all executive officers — from cabinet officials to postal carriers — serve at his or her pleasure.

The high court's ruling in Trump v. Slaughter held that the president may fire members of the Federal Trade Commission — and, by extension, members of similarly independent commissions — without cause, a development that has sweeping ramifications for agencies like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., National Credit Union Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.