The Center for Social Justice and Public Service offers at least two major lectures each year featuring Critical Race theorists. Critical Race Theory is a body of scholarship that has grown since the mid-1970s as a response to the rollback of gains made by the Civil Rights Movement. Critical race scholars, who see “racism as an ingrained feature of our landscape,” respond by analyzing “the myths, presuppositions, and received wisdoms that make up the common culture about race.” See Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge (Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic eds., 2d ed. 2000). Bringing the perspective of Critical Race Scholars to campus will benefit both law school and undergraduate students, faculty, staff, and alumni by encouraging an exchange of ideas.

Professor Jennifer Chacón (UC Irvine School of Law)

“The Naturalization of Racial Profiling”

Lecture at 4:00 p.m., followed by Wine and Cheese Reception

MCLE Credits Available

Jennifer M. Chacón holds a J.D. from Yale Law School (1998) and an A.B. in International Relations from Stanford University (1994).  She is currently Professor in the School of Law at the University of California, Irvine, where she is also the former Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. She is the author of more than 30 law review articles, book chapters, expert commentaries and shorter articles and essays discussing immigration, criminal law, constitutional law and citizenship issues.

Professor Chacón has served on the Nominations Committee of the Law and Society Association and chaired the 2014 Immigration Law Professors Workshop Planning Committee.  She is admitted to practice in New York and is a member of the New York City Bar Association, where she has served on the Committee on State Affairs and has contributed to the work of the Immigration and Nationality Law Committee.

Professor Chacόn was an associate with the New York law firm of Davis Polk and Wardwell from 1999-2003.  She clerked for the Honorable Sidney R. Thomas of the Ninth Circuit from 1998-1999.  Before teaching at U.C. Irvine, she was a professor at the U.C. Davis School of Law, and she has held visiting appointments at Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School.