Professor Angela Harris Appointed as Boochever and Bird Chair

Professor Angela Harris, one of the nation's foremost scholars in the fields of critical race theory, feminist legal theory, and civil rights, has been appointed as the Boochever and Bird Endowed Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom and Equality at UC Davis School of Law.

Professor Harris succeeds Professor Alan Brownstein, a nationally recognized Constitutional Law scholar who taught at UC Davis School of Law for more than 30 years and held the Boochever and Bird Chair prior to his retirement in December 2014. 

Harris, who began teaching at UC Berkeley School of Law in 1988, joined the King Hall faculty in 2011. She also has been a visiting professor at the law schools of Stanford, Yale, and Georgetown, and served as Vice Dean of Research and Faculty Development at the State University of New York - University at Buffalo School of Law during 2010-11. She holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and a master's degree in Social Science from the University of Chicago, where she also received her JD. Following law school, she clerked for Judge Joel M. Flaum on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and then practiced with Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco.

Harris is the author of a number of widely reprinted and influential articles and essays in critical legal theory, a prolific co-author of casebooks, and a co-editor of Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia (2013). Her article, "Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory" (Stanford Law Review, 1990), is one of the most-cited law review articles of all time, according to a recent study in the Michigan Law Review. She is a sought-after speaker at workshops and conferences, and she is active in promoting community among critical legal scholars, having played an active role in founding LatCrit, Inc. and ClassCrits. She is also the founding director of the Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies at King Hall.

The Boochever and Bird Chair was created with funding from Charlie '73  and Charlotte Bird to support faculty research committed to preserving and expanding the virtues of freedom and equality. The chair was named for the Honorable Robert Boochever of the Supreme Court of Alaska and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and for Elizabeth J. Bird and Donald G. Bird. As the Boochever and Bird Chair, Professor Harris will have access to an endowment that will support her research, teaching, and service efforts.

"Professor Harris is both one of the leading civil rights scholars of her generation and an outstanding teacher," said Dean Kevin R. Johnson.  "She is nothing less than an inspiration to King Hall faculty and students alike, and it is with great pride that we recognize her contributions with this appointment as the Boochever and Bird Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom and Equality."