Darren Hutchinson

Professor of Law and John Lewis Chair for Civil Rights and Social Justice; Director of Community and Inclusion; Chief Diversity Officer

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Areas of Expertise

Abortion and Reproductive Rights, Affirmative Action, Bill of Rights, Citizenship, Civil Rights,Constitutional Law, Executive Powers, Federal Courts, Fifteenth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, Gay Rights, LGBT Issues, Presidential Powers, Section 1983 Suits, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Orientation, Transgender Rights, Voting Rights

Biography

Professor Darren Lenard Hutchinson is the Emory University School of Law inaugural John Lewis Chair for Civil Rights and Social Justice. He joined the faculty on July 1, 2021. At Emory Law, Hutchinson serves as the faculty director of the Emory University Center for Civil Rights and Social Justice. He was also appointed to the role of director of community and inclusion and dchief diversity officer for the law school in fall 2022.

Civil rights and social justice are the central foci of Hutchinson’s research, teaching, administrative work, and community engagement. His pioneering research crosses many academic disciplines, including political science, history, and social psychology. Hutchinson also examines a broad range of legal doctrines and social justice matters, including equality law, criminal justice reform, LGBTQA rights, antiracism, and poverty. Hutchinson’s scholarship has appeared in many prestigious journals, including the Yale Law Journal, California Law Review, Cornell Law Review, UCLA Law Review, and Washington University Law Review.

Before joining Emory Law, Hutchinson served as the Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Eminent Scholar at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. He also held tenured faculty positions at American University Washington College of Law and Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

Hutchinson earned a JD from Yale Law School and BA from the University of Pennsylvania. Following law school, he was a litigation associate at the New York City office of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. He also served as law clerk to the late Honorable Mary Johnson Lowe, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Education: JD, Yale Law School, 1993; BA, University of Pennsylvania, 1990

Select Publications

Articles

“With All the Majesty of the Law”: Systemic Racism, Punitive Sentiment, and Equal Protection, 110 California Law Review _ (2022)

Who Locked Us Up: Examining the Social Meaning of Black Punitiveness, 127 Yale Law Journal 2388-2447 (2018) [SSRN]

Undignified: The Supreme Court, Racial Justice, and Dignity Claims, 69 Florida Law Review 1-62 (2017) [SSRN]

Preventing Balkanization or Facilitating Racial Domination: A Critique of the New Equal Protection, 22 Va. J. Soc. Pol’y & L. 1 (2015) [SSRN]

’Continually Reminded of Their Inferior Position’: Social Dominance, Implicit Bias, Criminality, and Race,” 46 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol’y 23 (2014) [SSRN]

“Not Without Political Power”: Gays and Lesbians, Equal Protection, and the Suspect Class Doctrine, 65 Ala. L. Rev. 975 (2014) [SSRN]

Resistance in the Afterlife of Identity, in Transcending The Boundaries of Law: Generations of Feminism and Legal Theory 176-191 (Martha Fineman ed., Routledge Press 2010)

Social Movements and Judging: An Essay on Institutional Reform Litigation and Desegregation in Dallas, Texas, 62 SMU L. Rev. 1635-56 (2009) [SSRN]

Racial Exhaustion, 86 Wash. U. L. Rev. 917-74 (2009) [SSRN]

Sexual Politics and Social Change, 41 Conn. L. Rev. 1523-46 (2009) [SSRN]

Reparations: A Remedies Law Perspective, 56 Am. U. L. Rev. 1402-1406 (2007)

By a Thread: Majority Politics and Race-Based Remedies, 50 How. L.J. 827-840 (2007)

The Majoritarian Difficulty: Affirmative Action, Sodomy, and Supreme Court Politics, 23 Law & Ineq. 1-93 (2005) [SSRN]

Critical Race Histories: In and Out, 54 Am. U. L. Rev. (2004) [SSRN]

Unexplainable on Grounds Other Than Race: The Inversion of Privilege and Subordination in Equal Protection Jurisprudence, 2003 Ill. L. Rev. 615-700 [SSRN]

New Complexity Theories: From Theoretical Innovation to Doctrinal Reform, 71 UMKC L. Rev. 431-45 (2003) [SSRN]

Factless Jurisprudence, 3 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 615-33 (2003) [SSRN]

Dissecting Judicial Bias: The Need for a Structural Analysis, Am. J. Gender Soc. Pol’y & L. 13-24 (2002) [SSRN]

Progressive Race Blindness?: Individual Identity, Group Politics, and Reform, 49 UCLA L. Rev. 1455-1480 (2002) [SSRN]

Closet Case: Boy Scouts of America v. Dale and the Reinforcement of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Invisibility, 76 Tul. L. Rev. 81-148 (2001) [SSRN]

Identity Crisis: Intersectionality, Multidimensionality, and the Development of An Adequate Theory of Subordination, 6 Mich. J. Race & L. 285-317 (2001) [SSRN]

Gay Rights for Gay Whites?: Race, Sexual Identity, and Equal Protection Discourse, 85 Cornell L. Rev. 1358-1391 (2000) [SSRN]

“Beyond the Rhetoric of ‘Dirty Laundry’: Examining the Value of Internal Criticism Within Progressive Social Movements and Oppressed Communities,” 5 Mich. J. Race & L. 185-99 (1999)

Ignoring the Sexualization of Race: Heteronormativity, Critical Race Theory, and Anti-Racist Politics, 47 Buff. L. Rev. 1-116 (1999) [SSRN]

Accommodating Outness: Hurley, Free Speech, and Gay and Lesbian Equality, 1 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 85-126 (1998) [SSRN]

Out Yet Unseen: A Racial Critique of Gay and Lesbian Legal Theory and Political Discourse, 29 Conn. L. Rev. 561-645 (1997)

Additional Publications

Op-Ed, There’s Never Been a Better Time for Bail Reform, Washington Post, Jul. 20, 2015 [Link]