20 U.S.C. § 42
Section 42 · Board of Regents; members
Amended 3 times on record
Applied in 14 court decisions — leading case Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd. (2010)
Most recently applied in Raven v. Sajet (September 2018)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) The business of the Institution shall be conducted at the city of Washington by a Board of Regents, named the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, to be composed of the Vice President, the Chief Justice of the United States, three Members of the Senate, three Members of the House of Representatives, and nine other persons, other than Members of Congress, two of whom shall be resident in the city of Washington, and seven of whom shall be inhabitants of some State, but no two of them of the same State.
(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution may modify the number of members, manner of appointment of members, or tenure of members, of the boards or commissions under the jurisdiction of the Smithsonian Institution, other than—
(1) the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution; and
(2) the boards or commissions of the National Gallery of Art, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Codification
R.S. §5580 derived from acts Aug. 10, 1846, ch. 178, §3, 9 Stat. 103; Jan. 10, 1865, ch. 11, 13 Stat. 420; Mar. 20, 1871, ch. 1, 17 Stat. 1.
Amendments
1998—Pub. L. 105–277 designated existing provisions as subsec. (a) and added subsec. (b).
1970—Pub. L. 91–551 authorized three additional persons on the Board of Regents.
1894—Act Mar. 12, 1894, struck out “the governor of the District of Columbia” after “the Chief Justice of the United States,”.
Cross References
National Zoological Park, administration by Regents of Smithsonian Institution, see section 81 of this title.