A Time for Solidarity
An Open Letter to Our Colleagues
Across the nation, we are witnessing sustained protest on a scale unseen since the civil rights movement. The police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Carlos Ingram Lopez, and countless others speak to a long history of police and vigilante violence against Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people. As scholars of the law, law and society, prisons, and policing, we write to express our commitment to recognizing and remediating our role in this centuries-old crisis.
We are inspired by communities that are demanding redefinition of public safety and redistribution of resources to those who have borne the brunt of state violence. Movement organizers have long highlighted the state’s simultaneous overinvestment in police and divestment from key resources that communities require to thrive and stay safe: healthcare, education, housing, and employment. Today’s calls to defund the police stem from a recognition that policing is rooted in anti-Blackness and the policy choices to impoverish people and then punish them for the predictable consequences of poverty. These choices have created an unsafe society where so many suffer. Our institutions must confront anti-Black racism and the histories of enslavement and colonialism, engage large-scale questions of the structure of the state and society, and take responsibility for our roles as scholars and teachers in perpetuating the status quo.
W e are in solidarity with the demand that the state invest in the well-being of communities. We are prepared to join with others who are fundamentally questioning how our society and the state are organized. We are ready to build a dialogue between siloed areas of thinking around the law, public safety, and the provision of housing, education, public assistance, and healthcare. We are ready to collectively reimagine and build a society committed to mutual care and social provisions, not profit and punishment.
Too many scholars are proposing familiar reforms that invest in police and undercut movement demands. This is an old pattern. Since the early 20th century, Black people have contested the scale and brutality of police violence within their communities. Their calls for structural change have been met with superficial and ineffective reforms that treat this violence as anomalous and as the product of individual bad actors.
To embrace a quick reform-and-repair strategy is to minimize the continued power of anti-Black racism within our society, its connection to settler colonialism, and the complicity of law therein. Since the settlement of the United States, our laws have facilitated and normalized egregious injustices against Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people: enslavement, land dispossession, convict-leasing, Jim Crow, mass removal, labor exploitation, and more recently, mass incarceration, mass detention, and mass surveillance. Policing has been a centerpiece of this history. When the law defers to police violence, and when we regard this violence solely within the realm of criminal law, we defer to the logic and history of white supremacy. The empowerment of police in this country is the empowerment of state violence against Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people to maintain their subordination and preserve the upwards distribution of wealth.
Our concern is deeper than law’s failure: our concern is with law’s central role in creating, strengthening, and legitimizing police and prisons. The punishment system — human caging, policing, e-carceration, and community supervision — normalizes widespread surveillance, caging, and killing. It also holds in place our status quo: residential segregation, widespread poverty and housing precarity, the exploitation of labor, brutality toward and erasure of disabled people, the gender binary, and the militarized border. Because of the fundamental violence of police and prisons, and their central role in maintaining this status quo, no procedural fix can address these deep and enduring crises.
We and our peers have trained many lawyers, policy-makers, law-makers, and judges who have designed and effectuated key instruments of systemic inequality — incarceration, policing, and deportation among them, but also broader structures of inequality created and sustained by law and policy. Law schools, legal theory, and prevailing modes of practice are far too often complicit in white supremacist logics of the law that reproduce social, political, and economic injustice. We must confront how legal thought and reasoning has contributed to a society in which state violence has become an acceptable response to issues of inequality.
As scholars, we should recognize and make amends for our collective role in building, sustaining, and growing the punishment system. Abolitionist organizations have done painstaking work to build toward this moment, when calls to divest from police and prisons are taking root all over the country. We should learn from movements and directly impacted communities about ways to rethink public safety and build institutions that reflect visions of community care.
We write this letter because we recognize our power and privilege as scholars and teachers. We may not be able to control the larger decisions of our universities, but we can be accountable to each other. We support #DefundthePolice. Many of us support abolition. We make commitments to each other, our communities, and the movements and everyday people taking to the streets to demand a different world.
Across our scholarly, pedagogical, and service work we make the following commitments:
1. We commit to confront anti-Black racism and white supremacy within law, policing, and the legal academy. This includes pushing for pedagogical, curricular, and institutional changes that recognize the connections between the law’s commitment to the criminal legal system and its abandonment of opportunities to use law to facilitate the ability of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people to thrive. We also recognize that there is a risk that if anti-Blackness is not centered, police violence as impacts Black people specifically will not be acknowledged or directly addressed. This commitment also means explicitly acknowledging the role of law and legal scholars in facilitating the exponential growth and legitimacy of prisons and police.
2. We commit to disentangling ourselves from the prison industrial complex. This includes divesting ourselves and our labor from projects and events that support and legitimize police, border patrol, prisons, detention centers, and the surveillance of marginalized populations.
3. We commit to solidarity with abolitionist organizing and movements. This includes bringing into our teaching, scholarship, and university service, wherever possible, the history and theory of abolitionist organizing, including its emphasis on building a more just society.
We invite you to join us in these commitments.
Respectfully,*
Kathryn Abrams
Herma Hill Kay Distinguished Professor of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
John Felipe Acevedo
Assistant Professor in Residence
University of Alabama, School of Law
E.Tendayi Achiume
Professor of Law
UCLA School of Law
Aziza Ahmed
Professor of Law
Northeastern University School of Law
Jane Aiken
Dean and Professor of Law
Wake Forest Law
Amna A. Akbar
Associate Professor
The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law
Michelle Alexander
Visiting Professor of Social Justice
Union Theological Seminary
Ty Alper
Clinical Professor of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
Anne Alstott
Professor of Law
Yale Law School
Kimberly Ambrose
Teaching Professor
University of Washington School of Law
Claudia Angelos
Clinical Professor of Law
New York University School of Law
Deborah N. Archer
Associate Professor of Clinical Law
New York University School of Law
Andrea Armstrong
Professor of Law
Loyola University New Orleans, College of Law
Chaz Arnett
Associate Professor of Law
University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Anna Arons
Acting Assistant Professor of Lawyering
New York University School of Law
Asad L. Asad
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Stanford University
Sameer Ashar
Clinical Professor of Law
University of California, Irvine School of Law
Lisa Avalos
Assistant Professor, Hermann Moyse, Sr. Professorship
LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center
Wendy A. Bach
Professor of Law
University of Tennessee College of Law
LaToya Baldwin Clark
Assistant Professor
UCLA School of Law
Asli Bali
Professor of Law
UCLA School of Law
W. David Ball
Professor of Law
Santa Clara Law School
Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Assistant Professor of Law
UC Irvine School of Law
Mehrsa Baradaran
Professor
UC Irvine School of Law
Shima Baradaran Baughman
Associate Dean of Research and Professor of Law
University of Utah Law School
Amber Baylor
Associate Professor of Law
Texas A&M Law
Theresa Rocha Beardall
Assistant Professor of Sociology and American Indian Studies
Virginia Tech
Debra Bechtel
Associate Professor of Clinical Law
Brooklyn Law School
Valena Beety
Professor of Law
Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law
Jeannine Bell
Richard S. Melvin Professor of Law
Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Monica C. Bell
Associate Professor of Law and Sociology
Yale Law School
Steven Bender
Professor of Law
Seattle University School of Law
Evan D. Bernick
Visiting Professor of Law
Executive Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution
Georgetown University Law Center
Alyse Bertenthal
Assistant Professor of Law
Wake Forest University Law School
Bill Bettencourt
Senior Fellow
The Center for the Study of Social Policy
James Bhandary-Alexander
Medical-Legal Partnership Legal Director
Yale Law School
Mary Lu Bilek
Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Corinne Blalock
Law & Political Economy Postdoctoral Fellow
Yale Law School
Hannah Bloch-Wehba
Associate Professor of Law
Texas A&M University School of Law
Josh Bowers
F.D.G. Ribble Professor of Law
University of Virginia School of Law
Nikolas Bowie
Assistant Professor of Law
Harvard Law School
Jamillah Bowman Williams
Associate Professor of Law
Faculty Director, Workers’ Rights Institute
Georgetown University Law Center
Sharon Brett
Lecturer
University of Kansas School of Law
Khiara M. Bridges
Professor of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
Kevin D. Brown
Richard S. Melvin Professor of Law
Indiana University Maurer School of Law
William Callison
Visiting Assistant Professor of Government and Law
Lafayette College
Letisha Engracia Cardoso Brown
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Virginia Tech
I. Bennett Capers
Professor of Law and Director of Race, Law, and Justice
Fordham University School of Law
Eduardo R.C. Capulong
Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Devon W. Carbado
The Honorable Harry Pregerson Professor of Law
UCLA School of Law
Jenny E. Carroll
Wiggins, Childs, Quinn & Pantazis Professor of Law
University of Alabama School of Law
Tara Casey
Clinical Professor of Law
University of Richmond School of Law
Sheryll Cashin
Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law, Civil Rights and Social Justice
Georgetown University Law Center
Shelley Cavalieri
Professor of Law
University of Toledo College of Law
Jennifer M. Chacón
Professor of Law
UCLA School of Law
Felix Chang
Professor of Law
University of Cincinnati College of Law
Faisal Chaudhry
Assistant Professor of Law & History
University of Dayton
Angélica Cházaro
Assistant Professor of Law
University of Washington School of Law
Gabriel J. Chin
Edward L. Barrett Jr. Chair and Martin Luther King Jr. Professor
University of California, Davis School of Law
Natalie M. Chin
Associate Professor of Law
City University of New York School of Law
Sumi Cho
Professor of Law
DePaul University College of Law
Carol L. Chomsky
Professor of Law
University of Minnesota Law School
Matthew Clair
Assistant Professor of Sociology and (by courtesy) Law
Stanford University
Stephen Cody
Assistant Professor of Law
Suffolk Law School
Amy J. Cohen
John C. Elam/Vorys Sater Professor of Law
The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
Julie E. Cohen
Mark Claster Mamolen Professor of Law & Technology
Georgetown Law School
Ruth Colker
Distinguished University Professor
The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law
Erin Collins
Associate Professor of Law
University of Richmond School of Law
Olwyn Conway
Assistant Clinical Professor of Law
The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
Blanche Cook
Robert E. Harding, Jr. Associate Professor of Law
University of Kentucky Rosenberg College of Law
Frank Rudy Cooper
Professor and Director, UNLV Program on Race, Gender & Policing
UNLV Boyd School of Law
Charlton C. Copeland
Professor of Law
University of Miami Law School
Roberto L. Corrada
Professor of Law
University of Denver Sturm College of Law
Courtney Cross
Assistant Professor of Clinical Legal Education
University of Alabama School of Law
Mitchell Crusto
Henry F. Bonura, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola University New Orleans College of Law
Angela J. Davis
Distinguished Professor of Law
American University Washington College of Law
Frank Deale
Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Brett Dignam
Clinical Professor of Law
Columbia Law School
Andrew Dilts
Associate Professor of Political Science
Loyola Marymount University
Deborah Dinner
Associate Professor of Law
Emory University School of Law
Anna di Robilant
Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Equity, Justice and Engagement
Boston University School of Law
Ryan Doerfler
Professor of Law and Herbert and Marjorie Fried Research Scholar
The University of Chicago Law School
Veena Dubal
Professor of Law
University of California, Hastings College of Law
Kathryn Dyer
Clinical Professor
University of Texas School of Law
Maxine Eichner
Graham Kenan Distinguished Professor of Law
University of North Carolina School of Law
Nate Ela
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Law
University of Cincinnati
Erik Encarnacion
Assistant Professor of Law
University of Texas School of Law
Karen Engle
Minerva House Drysdale Regents Chair in Law
University of Texas School of Law
Tammi S. Etheridge
Assistant Professor
Howard University School of Law
Jeffrey Fagan
Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law
Columbia University
Dan Farbman
Assistant Professor
Boston College Law School
Barbara Fedders
Assistant Professor
University of North Carolina School of Law
Jonathan Feingold
Associate Professor
Boston University School of Law
Laurel E. Fletcher
Clinical Professor of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
William E. Forbath
Lloyd M. Bentsen Chair in Law
University of Texas School of Law
Sheila R. Foster
Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Urban Law and Policy
Georgetown University Law Center
Megan Ming Francis
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of Washington
Katherine Franke
James L. Dohr Professor of Law
Columbia University
Alexi Freeman
Professor of the Practice
University of Denver Sturm College of Law
Andrea Freeman
Professor of Law
University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law
Nicole Smith Futrell
Associate Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Denise Gilman
Clinical Professor
University of Texas School of Law
Brian G. Gilmore
Associate Clinical Professor of Law & Director of the Housing Clinic
Michigan State University College of Law
Betsy Ginsberg
Clinical Professor of Law
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Jonathan Glater
Professor of Law
UCLA School of Law
Cynthia Godsoe
Professor of Law
Brooklyn Law School
Alyosha Goldstein
Professor of American Studies
University of New Mexico
Laura E. Gómez
Professor of Law
UCLA School of Law
Carmen G. Gonzalez
Morris I. Leibman Professor of Law
Loyola University Chicago School of Law
Marc-Tizoc González
Professor of Law
University of New Mexico School of Law
Leigh Goodmark
Marjorie Cook Professor of Law
University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Paul Gowder
Professor of Law
Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
Sara S. Greene
Professor of Law
Duke University School of Law
Lisa Kern Griffin
Professor of Law
Duke University
Ariela Gross
John B. & Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law & History
USC Gould School of Law
Catherine M. Grosso
Professor of Law
Michigan State University College of Law
Leslie Gross-Wyrtzen
Postdoctoral Associate in African Studies
Yale University
Nikolas Guggenberger
Lecturer & Executive Director, Yale Information Society Project
Yale University
Martin Guggenheim
Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law
New York University Law School
Kaaryn Gustafson
Professor of Law
UC Irvine School of Law
Sarah C. Haan
Professor of Law
Washington and Lee University School of Law
Hiba Hafiz
Assistant Professor of Law
Boston College Law School
Thomas Haley
Research Assistant Professor
University of Virginia School of Law
Samantha C. Hamilton
Clinical Fellow
University of Georgia, School of Law
G.S. Hans
Assistant Clinical Professor of Law
Vanderbilt Law School
Justin Hansford
Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law
Executive Director, Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center
Bernard E. Harcourt
Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law
Columbia Law School
Angela P. Harris
Professor Emerita
UC Davis School of Law
Cheryl I. Harris
Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
UCLA School of Law
Jasmine Harris
Professor of Law
UC Davis School of Law
Jonathan Harris
Acting Assistant Professor of Lawyering
NYU School of Law
Hendrik Hartog
Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty, Emeritus
Princeton University
Brandon Hasbrouck
Assistant Professor of Law
Washington and Lee University School of Law
Anna Haskins
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Cornell University
Renee Camille Hatcher
Assistant Professor of Law
UIC Law
Fareed Nassor Hayat
Associate Professor
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
J. Benton Heath
Assistant Professor of Law
Temple University Beasley School of Law
Kathryn Henne
Professor of Regulation and Governance
Australian National University
Brian Highsmith
Senior Researcher in Residence
Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law
Yale Law School
Sara Hildebrand
Clinical Teaching Fellow, Criminal Defense Clinic
University of Denver Sturm College of Law
Sean Allan Hill II
Visiting Assistant Professor
The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
Laila L. Hlass
Professor of Practice
Tulane University School of Law
Alexis Hoag
Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer
Columbia Law School
Hayes Holderness
Associate Professor
University of Richmond School of Law
Emily Houh Gustavus
Henry Wald Professor of the Law and Contracts
University of Cincinnati College of Law
Nan D. Hunter
Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law
Georgetown Law School
Aziz Z. Huq
Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law
The University of Chicago Law School
Lisa C. Ikemoto
Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor
University of California, Davis School of Law
Areto A. Imoukhuede
Professor of Law
Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law
Katherine Irwin
Professor of Sociology
University of Hawai'i, Manoa
Tarek Z. Ismail
Associate Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Maryam Jamshidi
Assistant Professor of Law
University of Florida, Levin College of Law
Thea Johnson
Associate Professor of Law
Rutgers Law School
Vida B. Johnson
Associate Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center
Lea Johnston
Professor of Law
University of Florida Levin College of Law
Emma Coleman Jordan
J. Crilley Kelly and Terry Curtin Kelly Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center
Thomas E. Kadri
Assistant Professor of Law
University of Georgia School of Law
Kristin Kalsem
Charles Hartsock Professor of Law
University of Cincinnati College of Law
Amy Kapczynski
Professor of Law
Yale Law School
Ramzi Kassem
Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Kathleen Kim
Associate Dean for Equity & Inclusion, Professor of Law
LMU Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
Amy Kimpel
Assistant Professor of Clinical Legal Instruction
University of Alabama
J.D. King
James P. Morefield Professor of Law
Washington and Lee University School of Law
Kit Kinports
Professor and Polisher Family Distinguished Faculty Scholar
Penn State Law (University Park)
Karl Klare
George J. & Kathleen Waters Matthews Distinguished University Professor
Northeastern University School of Law
Alexandra L. Klein
Visiting Assistant Professor
Washington & Lee University School of Law
Jennifer Lee Koh
Visiting Lecturer
University of Washington School of Law
Issa Kohler-Hausmann
Professor of Law and Sociology
Yale Law School
Stephanie Kollmann
Policy Director, Children and Family Justice Center
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
Allison Korn
Assistant Dean for Experiential Education
UCLA School of Law
Sarah Krakoff
Moses Lasky Professor of Law
University of Colorado Law School
Michelle Kuo
Associate Professor, History, Law, and Society
American University of Paris
Annie Lai
Clinical Professor of Law
UC Irvine School of Law
Jennifer E. Laurin
Wright C. Morrow Professor of Law
University of Texas School of Law
Donna H. Lee
Professor
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Amanda Levendowski
Associate Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center
Kate Levine
Associate Professor of Law
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
R. L'Heureux Lewis-McCoy
Associate Professor Sociology of Education
New York University
Darryl Li
Assistant Professor of Anthropology &
Lecturer in Law
University of Chicago
Theo Liebmann
Clinical Professor of Law
Hofstra Law School
Da Lin
Assistant Professor of Law
University of Richmond School of Law
Shirley Lin
Acting Assistant Professor
NYU School of Law
Justine Lindemann
Assistant Professor of Community Development and Resilience
Penn State University
Aaron Littman
Binder Clinical Teaching Fellow
UCLA School of Law
Cortney E. Lollar
James & Mary Lassiter Associate Professor
University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law
Gerald P. Lopez
Professor of Law
UCLA School of Law
Rachel Lopez
Associate Professor of Law
Drexel University, Kline School of Law
Sarah Lorr
Assistant Professor
Co-Director of the Disability and Civil Rights Clinic
Brooklyn Law School
Gregory Emmanuel Louis
Assistant Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Eleanor Lumsden
Professor of Law
Golden Gate University School of Law
Mona Lynch
Professor of Criminology, Law & Society
University of California, Irvine
Beth Lyon
Associate Dean for Experiential Education
Clinical Program Director
Cornell Law School
Chase Madar
Adjunct Professor
NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study
Tayyab Mahmud
Professor of Law
Seattle University
Matthew Main
Instructor
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Solangel Maldonado
Professor of Law
Seton Hall Law
Andrew Mamo
Assistant Professor of Law
Northern Illinois University College of Law
Peter Mancina
Visiting Scholar
Rutgers Law School
Maya Manian
Visiting Professor
American University Washington College of Law
Helen B. Marrow
Associate Professor of Sociology
Tufts University
Goldburn P. Maynard Jr.
Assistant Professor of Business Law and Ethics
Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
Martha McCluskey
Professor Emerita and Research Scholar
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Ben A. McJunkin
Associate Professor of Law
Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University
Allegra McLeod
Professor
Georgetown University Law Center
Naomi Mezey
Professor
Georgetown Law
Ion Meyn
Assistant Professor
University of Wisconsin
Chi Adanna Mgbako
Clinical Professor of Law
Fordham University School of Law
Kathryn E. Miller
Clinical Assistant Professor of Law
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Monte Mills
Associate Professor & Director, Margery Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic
Alexander Blewett III School of Law
University of Montana
Kate Mogulescu
Assistant Professor of Clinical Law
Brooklyn Law School
Saira Mohamed
Professor of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
Seema Mohapatra
Associate Professor of Law and Dean’s Fellow
Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
Janet Moore
Professor of Law
University of Cincinnati College of Law
Jamelia Morgan
Associate Professor
University of Connecticut School of Law
Christopher J. Morten
Teaching Fellow & Supervising Attorney
NYU Law School
Calvin Morrill
Stefan A. Riesenfeld Professor of Law and Sociology
UC Berkeley School of Law
Meghan L. Morris
Assistant Professor of Law
University of Cincinnati College of Law
Laura Moy
Associate Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center
Samuel Moyn
Henry Luce Professor of Jurisprudence
Yale Law School
Khalil Muhammad
Professor of History, Race, and Public Policy
Harvard Kennedy School
Elora Mukherjee
Jerome L. Greene Clinical Professor of Law
Columbia Law School
Naomi Murakawa
Associate Professor of African American Studies
Princeton University
Prianka Nair
Assistant Professor of Clinical Law
Brooklyn Law School
Jyoti Nanda
Associate Professor of Law
Golden Gate University School of Law
Smita Narula
Haub Distinguished Professor of International Law
Pace University, Elisabeth Haub School of Law
Lindsay Nash
Clinical Assistant Professor
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Ranjana Natarajan
Clinical Professor of Law
University of Texas School of Law
Elizabeth Nevins-Saunders
Clinical Professor of Law
Hofstra University, Maurice A. Deane School of Law
Luke Norris
Assistant Professor
University of Richmond Law School
Robert Norris
Assistant Professor
George Mason University
Kenneth B. Nunn
Professor of Law
University of Florida Levin College of Law
Anthony O’Rourke
Joseph W. Belluck & Laura L. Aswad Professor of Law
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Jonathan Oberman
Clinical Professor of Law
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Sean D. O’Brien
Professor of Law
UMKC School of Law
Priscilla A. Ocen
Professor of Law
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
Ngozi Okidegbe
Assistant Professor of Law
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Marisol Orihuela
Clinical Associate Professor of Law
Yale Law School
Shaun Ossei-Owusu
Presidential Assistant Professor of Law
University of Pennsylvania
Pilar N. Ossorio
Professor of Law and Bioethics
University of Wisconsin Law School
Michael Oswalt
Associate Professor of Law
Northern Illinois University College of Law
Lynnise Pantin
Clinical Professor of Law
Columbia University
K-Sue Park
Associate Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center
Jason Parkin
Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Gregory Parks
Professor of Law
Wake Forest School of Law
G. Michael Parsons
Acting Assistant Professor
NYU School of Law
Sunita Patel
Assistant Professor
UCLA School of Law
Sanjukta Paul
Assistant Professor of Law
Wayne State University
Talia Peleg
Associate Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Imani Perry
Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies
Princeton University
Richard Perry
Lecturer in Residence
UC Berkeley School of Law
Michelle S. Phelps
Associate Professor of Sociology and Law
University of Minnesota
Spencer Piston
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Boston University
Aparna Polavarapu
Associate Professor of Law
University of South Carolina School of Law
Karen Porter
Arthur Pinto & Stephen Bohlen Associate Dean for Inclusion and Diversity
Associate Professor of Clinical Law
Brooklyn Law School
Thea Posel
Clinical Assistant Professor of Law and Social Work
University of Texas
Cedric Merlin Powell
Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs Professor of Law
University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law
J.J. Prescott
Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School
Charles Press
Clinical Professor of Law
University of Texas School of Law
Melynda J. Price
Professor of Law
University of Kentucky College of Law
Vijay Raghavan
Assistant Professor of Law
Brooklyn Law School
Sabeel Rahman
Associate Professor of Law
Brooklyn Law School
Asad Rahim
Assistant Professor of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
Aziz Rana
Professor of Law
Cornell Law School
Vernellia R. Randall
Professor Emerita of Law
The University of Dayton School of Law
Alexander A. Reinert
Max Freund Professor of Litigation and Advocacy
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Alice Ristroph
Professor of Law
Brooklyn Law School
Allie Robbins
Associate Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Dorothy E. Roberts
George A. Weiss University Professor of Law & Sociology
Raymond Pace & Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights
University of Pennsylvania
Jenny Roberts
Professor of Law
Co-Director, Criminal Justice Clinic
American University Washington College of Law
Brendan Roediger
Professor of Law
St. Louis University School of Law
Daria Roithmayr
Richard and Antoinette Kirtland Professor of Law
University of Southern California Gould School of Law
Addie C. Rolnick
Professor of Law
UNLV Boyd School of Law
Alexios Rosario-Moore
Visiting Assistant Professor in Urban Education Policy
University of Illinois at Chicago
Leslie Rose
Professor Emerita
Golden Gate University School of Law
Joseph A. Rosenberg
Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Josephine Ross
Professor of Law
Howard University School of Law
Luana Ross
Professor Emerita of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies
University of Washington
Kathryn A. Sabbeth
Associate Professor of Law
University of North Carolina School of Law
Zahr Said
Associate Dean for Research
University of Washington School of Law
Doron Samuel-Siegel
Professor of Law, Legal Practice
University of Richmond School of Law
Margaret Satterthwaite
Professor of Clinical Law
NYU School of Law
Leticia Saucedo
Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law
UC Davis School of Law
Audra L. Savage
Senior Lecturer and Postdoctoral Fellow
Emory University School of Law
Jason Schultz
Professor of Clinical Law
NYU School of Law
Joanna Schwartz
Professor of Law
UCLA School of Law
Jeffrey Selbin
Clinical Professor of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
Michael Selmi
Foundation Professor of Law
Arizona State College of Law
Elisabeth Semel
Clinical Professor of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
Elizabeth Sepper
Professor of Law
University of Texas at Austin
Jeena Shah
Associate Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Colleen Shanahan
Clinical Professor of Law
Columbia Law School
Amanda Shanor
Assistant Professor
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Justin Simard
Assistant Professor
Michigan State University
Jonathan Simon
Lance Robbins Professor of Criminal Justice
UC Berkeley School of Law
Julia Simon-Kerr
Professor of Law
The University of Connecticut School of Law
Jocelyn Simonson
Professor of Law
Brooklyn Law School
David Simson
Acting Assistant Professor of Lawyering
New York University School of Law
Matiangai Sirleaf
Professor of Law
University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Scott Skinner-Thompson
Associate Professor of Law
University of Colorado Law School
Charisa Smith
Associate Professor
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Karen C. Sokol
Professor of Law
Loyola University of New Orleans College of Law
Vincent Southerland
Executive Director, Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law
New York University School of Law
Dean Spade
Associate Professor of Law
Seattle University School of Law
Michael Stauch
Assistant Professor of History
University of Toledo
Staci Strobl
Professor of Criminal Justice
UW-Platteville
Susan Sturm
George M. Jaffin Professor of Law and Social Responsibility
Columbia Law School
Sarah Swan
Assistant Professor of Law
Florida State University College of Law
Allison Tait
Professor of Law
University of Richmond
Chantal Thomas
Professor of Law
Cornell University
Kendall Thomas
Nash Professor of Law
Columbia University
I. India Thusi
Associate Professor of Law
Delaware Law School
Katie Tinto
Clinical Professor of Law
UC Irvine School of Law
Erin Tomlinson
Visiting Professor
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Etienne C. Toussaint
Assistant Professor of Law
University of the District of Columbia,
David A. Clarke School of Law
Michelle Travis
Professor of Law
University of San Francisco School of Law
Vilna Bashi Treitler
Professor, Black Studies
University of California Santa Barbara
Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve
Associate Professor of Sociology
Brown University
Anjali Vats
Associate Professor of Communication, African &
African Diaspora Studies, and Law (by Courtesy)
Boston College
Alex S. Vitale
Professor of Sociology
Brooklyn College
Robin Walker Sterling
Associate Dean of Clinical Education
Director, Bluhm Legal Clinic
Clinical Professor of Law
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
Rachel Wallace
Clinical Teaching Fellow
UC Berkeley School of Law
Madalyn K. Wasilczuk
Assistant Professor of Professional Practice
Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center
Carlton Waterhouse
Professor of Law
Director, Environmental Justice Center
Howard University School of Law
Lindsey Webb
Associate Professor
University of Denver Sturm College of Law
Kate Weisburd
Associate Professor of Law
George Washington University School of Law
Deborah M. Weissman
Reef C. Ivey Distinguished Professor of Law
University of North Carolina School of Law
Catharine P. Wells
Professor of Law
Boston College Law School
Kimberly West-Faulcon
James P. Bradley Chair in Constitutional Law and Professor of Law
Loyola Law School Los Angeles
Bruce Western
Bryce Professor of Sociology and Social Justice
Columbia University
John Whitlow
Associate Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Ralph Wilde
Associate Professor, Faculty of Laws
University College London, University of London
Michael J. Wishnie
William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law
Yale Law School
Michael W. Yarbrough
Associate Professor of Law & Society
City University of New York (CUNY), John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Ellen Yaroshefsky
Professor of Legal Ethics
Maurice A. Deane School of Law, Hofstra University
Hajar Yazdiha
Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Southern California
Noah D. Zatz
Professor of Law
UCLA School of Law
Steven Zeidman
Professor of Law
City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law
Mary Marsh Zulack
Professor Emerita of Clinical Law
Columbia University
This is the list of names as of August 24, 2020. We will update the list of signatories periodically.
Titles and institutions included for identification purposes only.*
