Academic History
- Ph.D. in Political Science, University of California, San Diego
- M.A. in Political Science, Claremont Graduate University
- B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science, Macalester College
Academic Focus
Abolition, Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, Law and Humanities, African American Political Thought
Courses Taught
- POLI 124: Race in American Politics
- POLI 140: Introduction to Political Theory
- POLI 141: Politics of Race and American Popular Film
- POLI 142: Marxism and Post-Marxism
- POLI 143: Civil Liberties and Fundamental Rights
- POLI 144: Legal Storytelling and the Rule of Law
- POLI 145: Race, Violence, and the Law
- POLI 146: Slow Theory: Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
- 148: Study and Struggle: From Prison Education to Prisoner Solidarity
- POLI 190: Senior Seminar
- Core I: Culture, Knowledge and Representation
- Core I: Histories of the Present: Violence
- Core I: Histories of the Present: Human Nature and Human Difference
- Core 2: Making Sense of Power
Selected Research and Publications
Books:
Is Racial Equality Unconstitutional? (Oxford University Press, 2018)
Articles and Reviews:
- "Redemptive Constitutionalism in the Jury Room and Public Life,” review of Sonali Chakravarti’s Radical Enfranchisement in the Jury Room and Public Life, Review Roundtable for Theory and Event, Volume 23, Number 3, July 2020.
- "Racial Capitalism and the Rule of Law," Social Science Research Council, Items: Race and Capitalism series (2019)
- "Remembering Massive Resistance to School Desegregation," Law and History Review Vol. 31, No. 3 (August 2013) pp491 - 530.
- "Review: Fugitive Slave on Trial: The Anthony Burns Case and Abolitionist Outrage, Earl Maltz," Law and Politics Book Review, Volume 21, No. 7 (July 2011) pp439-445.
- "Plessy as Passing: Judicial Responses to Ambiguously Raced Bodies in Plessy v. Ferguson," Law and Society Review, Volume 39, Number 3 (2005).
- "Review: Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?, Okin et al," Women's Studies (2001).
- "History Died For Our Sins: Guilt and Responsibility in Hollywood Redemption Histories," Journal of American Culture, Winter (1999).
- "Their Word Was to be My Law": Frederick Douglass and the Problem of Legal Meaning (in progress).
- "Constitutive Racism and the Living Constitution" (in progress).
Awards and Honors
- Mary W. Johnson Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching (2008, 2011, 2016, 2020))
- Mary W. Johnson Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Research (2018)
- Scripps College Faculty Sabbatical Research Fellowship (2012)
- Endowment for the Humanities, Earl Warren Fellowship (UCSD,1996-2000