Dorothy Roberts

Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law

Phone: (312) 503-0397
E-mail: d-roberts@law.northwestern.edu

Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Related Links: Joint Center for Poverty Research | Center for Legal Studies | Institute for Policy Research

Dorothy Roberts joined Northwestern's faculty in fall 1998 with a joint appointment as a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. She is a frequent speaker and prolific scholar on issues related to race, gender, and the law and has published more than 60 articles and essays in books and scholarly journals, including Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and Stanford Law Review, authored 2 award-winning books, and co-edited 5 casebooks and anthologies. She received fellowships and grants from the National Science Foundation, Searle Fund, Fulbright Scholars Program, and Harvard University Program in Ethics and the Professions, and as a visiting professor was the recipient of the Outstanding First-Year Course Professor Award for 1997-98. She is currently conducting research on the effects of child welfare agency involvement in African-American neighborhoods and on race-based biotechnologies.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Juvenile Law
Civil Rights
Criminal Law

Family Law
Women and the Law

COURSES

PUBLICATIONS

Representative Publications

The Genetic Tie, 62 University of Chicago Law Review 209 (1995)
Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare, Basic Books/Civitas, 2001; paperback, 2002
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and The Meaning of Liberty, Pantheon, 1997; Vintage paperback, 1999
The Social and Moral Cost of Mass Incarceration in African American Communities, 56 Stanford Law Review 1271-1305 (2004)
Spiritual and Menial Housework, 9 Yale Journal of Law & Feminism 51 (1997)

Recent Publications

Child Welfare’s Paradox , WILLIAM & MARY LAW REVIEW , 2008
Women and the Law, 2008
Race and the New Reproduction , The Reproductive Rights Reader: Law, Medicine, and the Construction of Motherhood, 2008
Making Reproduction a Crime, The Reproductive Rights Reader: Law, Medicine, and the Construction of Motherhood, 2008
Torture and the Biopolitics of Race, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI LAW REVIEW , 2008

View more publications by Dorothy Roberts

JOINT APPOINTMENTS

Faculty, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research
Faculty, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Department of African American Studies
Faculty, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology

EDUCATION

BA magna cum laude, Yale University
JD, Harvard University

PRIOR APPOINTMENTS

Visiting Professor, Stanford Law School, spring 1998
Visiting Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania Law School, spring 1994
Professor of Law, Associate Professor of Law, Rutgers University School of Law-Rutgers, 1988-98
Fellow, Harvard University Program in Ethics and the Professions, 1994-95
Associate, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, 1981-88
Law Clerk, Hon. Constance Baker Motley, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1980-81

RECENT CONSULTING ACTIVITIES

Member, Board of Directors, National Black Women’s Health Imperative
Member, Board of Directors, National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
Member, Braam Panel, monitoring foster care reform in Washington State
Member, Lexis/Nexis Advisory Board
Member, Advisory Board, Program on Reproductive Health and Rights, Open Society Institute