معرفی
Aya Gruber serves as the Harold Medill Heimbaugh Professor of Law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, where she is a leading scholar in criminal law, critical theory, and feminist legal studies. Previously, she held professorships at the University of Colorado Law School (where she was the Ira C. Rothgerber Professor of Constitutional Law and Criminal Justice), University of Iowa School of Law, and was a founding faculty member at Florida International University Law School. In 2017, she served as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.
Gruber's research focuses on the complex relationship between feminist movements and criminal justice systems, particularly regarding violence against women. Her work critically examines how feminist efforts to strengthen legal responses to gender-based violence have contributed to mass incarceration. She combines insights from her experience as a public defender with extensive scholarly research to develop alternative approaches that address gender violence without exacerbating punitive systems. Her scholarship spans criminal law and procedure, critical theory, feminism, and comparative/international law.
Gruber's influential publications include her 2020 monograph The Feminist War On Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women's Liberation in Mass Incarceration (UC Press), which received critical acclaim for its analysis of how feminist movements became entangled with the war on crime. Her 2023 article Sex Exceptionalism in Criminal Law explores why sex crimes are treated categorically differently from other offenses. She is currently working on a new book titled The Crime of Sex.
- Outstanding New Faculty Member Award (2012)
- Gilbert Goldstein Fellowship for scholarship (2015)
- Jules Milstein Award (2017, 2020)
- Elected to membership in the American Law Institute (2016)
Gruber has been an adviser to the ALI Model Penal Code sexual assault project since 2012 and frequently engages with media and public discourse on criminal justice issues. Her scholarship has been featured in major publications including the New York Times, Slate, and The Guardian, and she has appeared on PBS, Fox News, ABC, and CBS' 48 Hours. In 2023, she was featured in the MSNBC film The Recall: Reframed, which examines the recall of Judge Aaron Persky in the Brock Turner case.
