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Barbara Flagg

Professor of Law Emerita

Professor Barbara Flagg is an expert in constitutional law, critical race theory, federal jurisdiction, and jurisprudence. Drawing on her background in law and philosophy, she teaches a course in critical jurisprudence, as well as other courses and seminars dealing with social justice, white privilege, and sexuality and the law. Professor Flagg also has written extensively on legal matters pertaining to race proportionality, diversity, white race consciousness, and Title VII. Previously a John S. Lehmann Research Professor at the law school, she currently is focusing her scholarship on judicial race activism and critical jurisprudence. Prior to becoming a law professor, she was a lecturer in philosophy, teaching logic, critical thinking, and ethics at two universities in California. After earning her law degree, she clerked for the Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, prior to Justice Ginsburg’s entry onto the U.S. Supreme Court.

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  • Education
    • A.B. & M.A., University of California – Riverside, 1967, 1971
    • J.D., University of California – Berkeley, 1987
  • Courses
    • Critical Jurisprudence
    • Federal Jurisdiction
    • Seminar on White Privilege and The Law
  • Publications
    • In Defense of Race Proportionality, 16 Ohio St. L.J. 1285 (2008)
    • An Essay for Keisha (and a response to Professor Ford), 14 Duke J. Gender L. & Pol’y
      179 (2007)
    • Of Hearts and Minds, 19 WASH. U.J.L. & POLICY 129 (2005) reviewing MICHAEL K.
      BROWN ET AL., WHITEWASHING RACE: THE MYTH OF A COLOR-BLIND SOCIETY)
    • Foreword: Whiteness as Metaprivilege 18 WASH. U.J.L. & POLICY 1 (2005)
    • Diversity Discourses, 78 TUL. L. REV. 827 (2004)
    • Subtle Opposition, 34 COLUM. HUM. RTS. L. REV. 605 (2003)
    • Experimenting with Problem-Based Learning in Constitutional Law, 10 WASH. U.J.L. & POLICY 101 (2002)
    • WAS BLIND, BUT NOW I SEE: WHITE RACE CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE LAW (N.Y.U. Press 1998)
    • “Animus” and Moral Disapproval: A Comment on Romer v. Evans, 82 MINN. L. REV. 833 (1998)
    • With Katherine Goldwasser, Fighting for Truth, Justice, and the Asymmetrical Way, 76 WASH. U.L.Q. 105 (1998); reproduced in APA NEWSLETTER (Spring 1999)
    • Changing the Rules: Some Preliminary Thoughts on Doctrinal Reform, Indeterminacy, and Whiteness, 2 AFRICAN LAW & POLICY REPORT 250 (1996)
    • Fashioning a Title VII Remedy for Transparently White Subjective Decisionmaking, 104 YALE L.J. 2009 (1995)
    • On Selecting Black Women as Paradigms for Race Discrimination Analyses, 10 BERKELEY WOMEN’S L.J. 40 (1995)
    • Enduring Principle: On Race, Process, and Constitutional Law, 82 CALIF. L. REV. 935 (1994)
    • The Algebra of Pluralism: Subjective Experience as a Constitutional Variable, 47 VAND. L.REV. 273 (1994)
    • “Was Blind, But Now I See”: White Race Consciousness and the Requirement of Discriminatory Intent, 91 MICH. L. REV. 953 (1993)
    • Women’s Narratives, Women’s Story, 59 U. CIN. L. REV. 147 (1990) (reviewing CATHARINE MACKINNON, TOWARD A FEMINIST THEORY OF THE STATE)
    • With Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Some Reflections on the Feminist Legal Thought of the 1970s, 1989 U. CHI. LEGAL F. 9.
    • With Susan Frelich Appleton, The Feminization of Abortion, 29 JURIMETRICS J. 349 (1989) (reviewing ROBERT GOLDSTEIN, MOTHER LOVE AND ABORTION: A LEGAL INTERPRETATION)
    • Respecting Reliance: A Standard for Due Process Review of California’s Retroactive Community Property Legislation, 14:4 COMMUNITY PROP. J. 14 (1998)