Professors Ariela Dubler, Robin Lenhardt, Elizabeth Schneider, Anna Marie Smith, Suzanne Goldberg, Kendall Thomas,
Susan Sturm, Elizabeth Scott & Katherine Franke
Katherine Franke, Professor of Law and Director of the Gender and Sexuality Program, is a well-known scholar of feminism, sexuality & race. She has just completed a book entitled Emancipation Proclamation. In addition to her Gender Justice course, she co-directs the Feminist Theory Workshop and teaches Civil Rights Law and Critical Legal Thought.
Suzanne Goldberg, a Professor of Law, Director of the Gender and Sexuality Program, and Director of the Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic, is an expert in sexuality and gender law. Before joining the Columbia law faculty she ran the Women’s Rights Clinic at Rutgers Law School and served as a senior staff attorney at Lambda Legal Defense. Professor Goldberg was co-counsel in Lawrence v. Texas and Romer v. Evans and co-authored Strangers to the Law: Gay People on Trial.
Carol Sanger is the Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law and is a widely respected scholar in the areas of family law, the regulation of maternal conduct and technologies of motherhood. Her recent research focuses on infant safe haven laws, and the use and abuse of sonograms to determine fetal sex and as a coercive tool to steer women away from having abortions.
Ariela Dubler is a Professor of Law who specializes in the legal history of motherhood, marriage and the family. Her work has focused on the ways marriage laws have regulated unmarried women, how marriage has been used to “cure” the immorality of women who have sex outside of marriage, and the way marriage has figured in movements for racial and sexual orientation-based justice.
Elizabeth Scott is the Harold R. Medina Professor of Law and is an expert in juvenile justice, children and the law and family law. Her research applies behavioral economics, social science research, and developmental theory to family/juvenile law and policy issues. Her work on juvenile justice has been cited by numerous courts.
Elizabeth Emens is an Associate Professor of Law whose work examines the intersection of sexuality, gender and disability law. She has researched why public norms against gender and disability discrimination are not considered to apply in the private/intimate sphere; the history of name changing by married women; and the importance of polyamory/polygamy to strategies for gender and sexuality based justice.
Susan Sturm is the George M. Jaffin Professor of Law and Social Responsibility at Columbia Law School and co-director of Columbia’s Center for Institutional and Social Change. Her work addressing structural inequality in higher education and employment is widely cited and keeps her on the cutting edge of academic inquiry and law reform efforts related to discrimination and conflict resolution.
Patricia Williams, the James L. Dohr Professor of Law, is a columnist for The Nation and a national commentator on race and gender. Her books include The Alchemy of Race and Rights and Seeing a ColorBlind Future: The Paradox of Race. She regularly co-directs Columbia’s Feminist Legal Theory Workshop.
Kendall Thomas is the Nash Professor Law and directs the Center for the Study of Law and Culture. A founder of the Critical Race Theory movement in the U.S. legal academy, his expertise lies in race and the law, sexuality studies, gender studies, human rights and the questions of culture and the interdisciplinary study of law more generally.
Jane Spinak, the Edward Ross Aranow Clinical Professor of Law, is director of Columbia’s Child Advocacy Clinic, which represents foster children in family court proceedings. She has authored numerous books and articles on child welfare and family court matters for child advocates, judges, and scholars. Prof. Spinak was Attorney-in-Charge of the Juvenile Rights Division of the Legal Aid Society in New York City.
Kimberlé Crenshaw, Professor of Law and Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum, reshaped the field of feminist legal theory with her insights into the ways that the law has disregarded the intersection of race and sex-based harms. She writes widely in civil rights, critical race studies, and constitutional law.