Professor Pruitt, Ezera Miller-Walfish '22 Analyze Supreme Court Voting-Rights Decision

Professor Lisa R. Pruitt collaborated with UC Davis Law student Ezera Miller-Walfish on a Daily Yonder analysis of the recent Supreme Court voting-rights decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.

Although the decision was very bad news for rural residents in terms of the precedent set, the dissenting opinion, written by Justice Elena Kagan and joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, took the concept of distance—rural spatiality—more seriously than any faction of the Supreme Court has before, Pruitt and Miller-Walfish write. Read the analysis.

Lisa R. Pruitt, Martin Luther King Jr. Professor at UC Davis School of Law, is a scholar whose recent work explores the legal relevance of rural spatiality, including how it inflects dimensions of gender, race, and ethnicity.  Pruitt's work also considers rural-urban difference in transnational and international contexts. She is the recipient of the law school’s 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award.