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Civil Rights

Criminal Law and Racial Subordination

Darren Lenard Hutchinson
Professor Hutchinson joined Emory in 2021 as the inaugural John Lewis Chair for Civil Rights and Social Justice. These subjects are the central foci of his research, and he is widely known for the rigor of his work and a sustained commitment to analyzing and remedying inequality. Hutchinson’s pioneering, multidisciplinary research examines how law impacts civil rights and social justice. His scholarship emphasizes viewing inequality as a multidimensional concept and shines light on the complexity of subordination. Before joining Emory Law, Hutchinson was the Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Eminent Scholar at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. He has also held tenured positions at American University Washington College of Law and Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. He was a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. His scholarship has appeared in many prestigious journals, including those below. Following law school, he was a litigation associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. He also served as law clerk to the late Hon. Mary Johnson Lowe, US District Court for the Southern District of New York.


Select Publications

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

Who Locked Us Up? Examining the Social Meaning of Black Punitiveness, 127 Yale Law Journal 2388 (2018)

Undignified: The Supreme Court, Racial Justice, and Dignity Claims, 69 Florida Law Review 1 (2017)

Preventing Balkanization or Facilitating Racial Domination: A Critique of the New Equal Protection, 22 Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law 1 (2015)

“Continually Reminded of Their Inferior Position”: Social Dominance, Implicit Bias, Criminality, and Race, 46 Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 23 (2014)

“Not Without Political Power”: Gays and Lesbians, Equal Protection, and the Suspect Class Doctrine, 65 Alabama Law Review 975 (2014)

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