معرفی
Leti Volpp serves as the Robert D. and Leslie Kay Raven Professor of Law in Access to Justice at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. She directs the campus-wide Center for Race and Gender and maintains affiliations with the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory, Center for the Study of Law and Society, Gender and Women's Studies, Institute for European Studies, Othering and Belonging LGBTQ Citizenship Cluster, and Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative.
- A.B., Princeton University (1986)
- M.S.P.H., Harvard University (1988)
- M.S., University of Edinburgh (1989)
- J.D., Columbia University (1993)
Volpp's research examines how law is shaped by culture and identity, with particular focus on immigration law, citizenship theory, and racial justice. Her critical legal scholarship interrogates the intersections of gender, race, and national identity within legal frameworks. She investigates how cultural narratives influence legal decision-making, particularly in cases involving immigrant communities and marginalized populations. Her work challenges conventional understandings of citizenship and belonging while analyzing the role of law in constructing social hierarchies.
Her publications reveal consistent engagement with themes of cultural representation in legal contexts, the politics of immigration enforcement, and feminist critiques of multiculturalism. Volpp's scholarship demonstrates increasing focus on contemporary issues including post-9/11 security policies, refugee crises, and the legal implications of identity politics in the Trump era, while maintaining her foundational interest in how cultural narratives shape legal outcomes.
Scientific Awards:
- Two Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Fellowships
- MacArthur Foundation Individual Research and Writing Grant
- Association of American Law Schools Minority Section Derrick A. Bell, Jr. Award
- Professor Keith Aoki Asian Pacific American Jurisprudence Award
- Elected Member of the American Law Institute
Volpp has delivered prestigious lectures including the James A. Thomas Lecture at Yale Law School, Korematsu Lecture at NYU Law School, and Barbara Aronstein Black Lecture at Columbia Law School. She serves on the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity and has held visiting positions at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and University of Osnabrück. Her public engagement includes media interviews such as KPFA's Against the Grain program discussing culture, gender, and identity.
Before entering academia, Volpp clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Thelton E. Henderson, worked as a Skadden Fellow at Equal Rights Advocates and ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, served as trial attorney in the DOJ Civil Rights Division, and worked as staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project. She began teaching at American University Washington College of Law in 1998 and visited at UCLA School of Law in 2004-05.
