Center on Race, Law and Justice

The above words were written in 2016, when Fordham's Center on Race, Law and Justice was first launched, but could have easily been written today. Indeed, given the ongoing protests over police violence, the racial inequities brought to the surface by Covid-19, and an administration that seems openly hostile to racial minorities, the work of the Center on Race, Law and Justice seems more urgent than ever. 

Since its launch in 2016, the Center on Race, Law and Justice has become a national voice in: 

  • intervening in current debates about race, citizenship, and democracy
  • promoting critical, interdisciplinary, and methodologically innovative scholarship and approaches to understanding race and discrimination
  • generating insights and solutions necessary to achieve real and positive change on race issues
  • collaborating with law firms and other legal institutions to address issues of diversity and access in the legal profession
  • establishing the LEAP pipeline program (now call IDEAL) to increase diversity in education and the law by identifying talented underrepresented college students in the New York City area and exposing them to the legal profession

Our Mission

Going forward, and with its new Director, Professor Bennett Capers, the Center on Race, Law and Justice is committed to playing an even greater role for students at Fordham Law School, and for the community at large, both domestically and internationally. Law schools have always played an important role in the movement for equality. The Center looks forward to being at the vanguard of that movement. 

The Center works to generate innovative responses to racial inequality and discrimination. It prioritizes law, data, and social science-informed interventions capable of creating concrete change in communities, institutions, and public policy in a number of areas in the domestic and global contexts.  The Center maximizes real-world impact through cross-disciplinary collaborations, comparative analyses, and systemic interventions that push the boundaries of traditional approaches to race and inequality.  Founded in early 2016, the Center marks an effort to marshal the tremendous research capacity and expertise at Fordham University on race and urban issues directly relevant to the University’s social justice mission, location in New York City, and status as one of the premiere research institutions in the country.

  • The Center’s approach to race and law incorporates fields such as history, sociology, and political science and features analytical tools drawn from:

    • Critical Race Theory
    • Comparative Law
    • Empirical Methods
    • Structuralism and Institutional Reform
    • Legal History
    • Feminist Legal Theory
    • Affirmative Action
    • Antidiscrimination
    • Civil Rights Advocacy
    • Criminal Law and Procedure
    • Community and Economic Development
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Environmental Justice
    • Family and Family Advocacy
    • Health and Biomedical Ethics
    • Housing
    • Human Rights
    • Immigration
    • International Development and Sustainability
    • Internet and Information Technologies
    • Legal Ethics
    • Legal History
    • Legislation
    • National Security
    • Poverty
    • Urban Studies
    • Voting Rights
    • Workers Rights and Solidarity
  • The Center functions as an incubator and a platform for advancing cutting-edge interdisciplinary scholarship on racial identity, cumulative disadvantage, and racial justice tools that are grounded in critical analyses, empirical methods, and comparative inquiry.

    It helps generate original research and analysis of core civil rights and social justice issues.

    It promotes innovations in legal pedagogy, practice, and professionalism in relation to issues of race, civil rights, and diversity.

  • The Center on Race, Law & Justice is grateful to the members of its advisory board for providing invaluable guidance and support throughout the year.

    Vivian M. Arias, Esq. ’07
    Partner
    Holland & Knight, LLP

    The Honorable Denny Chin ’78
    Judge
    United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

    Brenda L. Gill, Esq. ’95
    Deputy General Counsel
    OneMarketData

    Angelo R. Guisado, Esq. ’12
    Staff Attorney
    Center for Constitutional Rights

    Noah S. Heller, Esq. ’00
    Chief Executive Officer
    Katten Muchin & Rosenman, LLP

    Michelle Y. Johnson-Lewis, Esq. ’93
    Retired Pharmaceutical/Biotech Legal Executive

    Michael Kim, Esq. ’97
    Partner
    Blank Rome LLP

    Rachel M. Kleinman, Esq. ’05
    Senior Counsel & Director of Professional Development
    NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

    William Malpica, Esq. ’00
    Partner
    Martin LLP

    Willajeanne F. McLean, Esq. ’86
    Faculty, Law Instruction and Research
    University of Connecticut

News

Center on Race, Law and Justice Names Three New Affiliated Faculty Members

Center on Race, Law and Justice Names Three New Affiliated Faculty Members

Fordham Law’s Center on Race, Law and Justice has expanded the breadth of its scholarship with the addition of three new affiliated faculty who bring expertise in subjects ranging from …

Incarceration and Mental Health: How A Different Approach to Mental Health May Be Key to Closing Rikers

Incarceration and Mental Health: How A Different Approach to Mental Health May Be Key to Closing Rikers

New York City has committed to closing the infamous Rikers Island jail by 2027, but to do so the City will need to cut the jail’s population nearly in half. …

Meet This Year’s Recipients of the Hon. Deborah A. Batts Scholarship

Meet This Year’s Recipients of the Hon. Deborah A. Batts Scholarship

Shanice Scantlebury ’25, Yannick Twumasi ’25, and Cristian Vega ’25 have been named the 2023 recipients of the Hon. Deborah A. Batts Scholarship. The scholarship was established in 2021 soon …

Urban Law Journal Celebrates 50th Anniversary with Discussion on the “Future of Prosecution”

Urban Law Journal Celebrates 50th Anniversary with Discussion on the “Future of Prosecution”

The Fordham Urban Law Journal celebrated its 50th anniversary by bringing together speakers from both the criminal defense and prosecution side for a discussion about the future of criminal prosecution. …

First-of-its-Kind Global Anti-Racism Clinic Launches at Fordham Law

First-of-its-Kind Global Anti-Racism Clinic Launches at Fordham Law

This semester, Fordham Law launched the Global Anti-Racism Clinic—one of the first of its kind in the country. A joint initiative of the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice …

At Book Launch, Professor Tanya Hernández Envisions Paths Forward for the Latino Community

At Book Launch, Professor Tanya Hernández Envisions Paths Forward for the Latino Community

Fordham Law celebrated the publication of Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law Tanya Hernández’s latest book, Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality, with a book …

Upcoming Speaker Series Explores Lawyers’ Role as Public Intellectuals in Conversations on Race

Upcoming Speaker Series Explores Lawyers’ Role as Public Intellectuals in Conversations on Race

Lawyers and activists working on issues at the intersection of race and the law are frequently both deeply influenced by and making meaningful contributions to the public discourse. Due to …

Professor Tanya Hernandez Examines Latino Anti-Black Racism in New Book 

Professor Tanya Hernandez Examines Latino Anti-Black Racism in New Book 

Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality (Beacon Press, August 2022), the third book by Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law Tanya Hernández, will be published …

Authors of Recent Fordham Law Review Essays Discuss Subversive Lawyering

Authors of Recent Fordham Law Review Essays Discuss Subversive Lawyering

Several authors of articles recently published by the Fordham Law Review returned to Fordham Law School on April 28 for a virtual discussion to continue a conversation on “subversive lawyering.” …

Book Panel Discusses Question of “Rule of Law” and Race

Book Panel Discusses Question of “Rule of Law” and Race

On March 4, Paul Gowder, professor of law at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, spoke to the Fordham Law community about his new book The Rule of Law in …

Ferrell Littlejohn ’24 and Afrika Owes ’24 Named This Year’s Recipients of the Hon. Deborah A. Batts Scholarship

Ferrell Littlejohn ’24 and Afrika Owes ’24 Named This Year’s Recipients of the Hon. Deborah A. Batts Scholarship

Ferrell Littlejohn ’24 and Afrika Owes ’24 have been named this year’s recipients of the Hon. Deborah A. Batts Scholarship. Judge Batts, the first Black faculty member to receive tenure …

Fordham Law Welcomes Zenande Booi and Dominique Bravo to the Center on Race, Law and Justice

Fordham Law Welcomes Zenande Booi and Dominique Bravo to the Center on Race, Law and Justice

Zenande Booi and Dominique Bravo are feeling optimistic about the spring 2022 semester—and beyond—as they join the Fordham Law School community in their new positions at the Center of Race, …

Pulitzer Prize Winner Nikole Hannah-Jones Delivers Fordham Law School’s Inaugural Eunice Carter Lecture

Pulitzer Prize Winner Nikole Hannah-Jones Delivers Fordham Law School’s Inaugural Eunice Carter Lecture

Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of The New York Times Magazine’s “1619 Project,” a collection of articles that examines the legacies and consequences of slavery in America, graced the stage at Fordham …

Fordham Law Holds Discussion on Intersection between Race and Religion Featuring Professor Sahar Aziz of Rutgers Law

Fordham Law Holds Discussion on Intersection between Race and Religion Featuring Professor Sahar Aziz of Rutgers Law

On Nov. 30, Rutgers University Law School Professor Sahar Aziz gave a virtual talk on her recently published book, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, which demonstrates how …

Is There a “Mulatto Escape Hatch” Out of Racism? Scholars Argue “No”

Is There a “Mulatto Escape Hatch” Out of Racism? Scholars Argue “No”

The term “mulatto escape hatch”—coined in 1971 by U.S. historian Carl Degler—describes the intermediate social position held by Brazil’s mixed-race population in Brazil’s racially stratified society. Over the past 50 …

Scholars Discuss Role Critical Race Theory Can Play in Combating Inequality

Scholars Discuss Role Critical Race Theory Can Play in Combating Inequality

Critical race theory (CRT)—coined by legal scholars Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, and Stephanie Phillips—is a framework of legal analysis that examines the intersection of race and the law. It does …

Chicago, Long Riven Over Police Conduct, Reels Anew After Shooting of 13-Year-Old

Chicago, Long Riven Over Police Conduct, Reels Anew After Shooting of 13-Year-Old

Professor Bennett Capers shared his expert opinion with The New York Times on the recent fatal police shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago, Illinois. Chicagoans reacted with horror and …

From Black History to Black Future

From Black History to Black Future

To close out Black History Month, on Feb. 25 the Center on Race, Law and Justice presented a forward-looking discussion titled, “How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?” Five scholars of …

The Big Idea: Race, Policing, and Afrofuturism

The Big Idea: Race, Policing, and Afrofuturism

Professor Bennett Capers’ expansive intellectual appetite ranges from criminal law to Andy Warhol and the television series The Wire, but at bottom is always personal. “I’ve always been interested in …

New Scholarship Program Honors the Late Judge Deborah A. Batts

New Scholarship Program Honors the Late Judge Deborah A. Batts

To honor the late Judge Deborah A. Batts, a trailblazing legal scholar and pioneering jurist, Fordham Law School has created a new scholarship program and announced its very first recipients. …