Fordham Law’s Center on Race, Law and Justice has expanded the breadth of its scholarship with the addition of three new affiliated faculty who bring expertise in subjects ranging from race and business to the economics of slavery and access to housing.
Professors Atinuke Adediran, Eleanor Brown, and Norrinda Brown join 19 interdisciplinary faculty members from the Law School and Fordham University who teach, write, and work in areas relating to the intersection of race, law, and justice.
Founded in 2016, the Center maximizes real-world impact through cross-disciplinary collaborations, comparative analyses, and systemic interventions that push the boundaries of traditional approaches to race and inequality.
“We’re excited to have Professors Eleanor Brown, Norrinda Brown, and Atinuke Adediran join us this semester and, more importantly, are excited to have a growing faculty affiliation as we look to expand upon our work this academic year,” said Zenande Booi, the Center’s executive director. “It is not only critical that we have a space that creates and shares knowledge on issues focused on race and racism and discusses the everyday impact that has, but that our faculty have such a space as well to engage with their peers.”
Bennett Capers, the Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Professor of Law and Director of the Center, is especially excited about the range of scholarship reflected in the new additions to the Center. “Professors Brown, Brown, and Adediran are all terrific scholars, bringing race to issues ranging from property rights and wealth accumulation in the diaspora, to access to housing, to corporate disclosures,” he said. “They’re helping position the Center, and indeed Fordham Law School, at the forefront of race and law scholarship both domestically and internationally.”
Atinuke Adediran, Associate Professor of Law
An interdisciplinary empirical scholar, Atinuke Adediran’s expertise lies at the intersection of race and law, business, social impact, and law and social science. She is currently on an Intergovernmental Personnel Act assignment as senior advisor on racial justice at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Adediran is also working on a book on how companies use disclosures to construct a race-conscious public image and treat claims of systemic racism in their business as social risk.
“It’s really important that Fordham Law has this center during this time in our current society,” Adediran said. “The first fall 2023 event the Center will be holding on September 27—“Law Firm and Corporate Diversity after SFFA v Harvard”—a topic that is top of mind for many law firms and corporations right now and for students going into the legal profession after graduation. Having the opportunity to be part of that conversation [as a panelist]around the impact, or lack of impact, on private employers and how to continue to do the work of diversifying and integrating the workplace from an institutional perspective within the bounds of the current law is exciting.”
Eleanor Brown, Professor of Law
A property and immigration law scholar, Eleanor Brown’s work lies at the intersection of race, migration and asset acquisition. Currently, she is exploring how enslaved people in the Americas, and particularly enslaved people in the British Caribbean, acquired assets during a time when the British Caribbean served as “the economic engine” for the British Empire. She is also looking at other types of property that enslaved people in the Caribbean were involved with, including intellectual property, and how that affects the way we currently think of and define reparations.
“I think the Center has a really amazing role to play not only in academic conversations, which are important conversations, but also in introducing new academic conversations to the public discourse,” Brown said. “To the extent that my work is at the intersection of race, migration and property, I’m very excited to now be a part of that conversation with them.”
Norrinda Brown, Associate Professor of Law
One of clinical legal education’s rising stars and an award-winning housing advocate, Norrinda Brown’s research focuses on the intersection of law and issues of race, gender, and access to housing. Prior to law teaching, Brown spent almost a decade in government practice at the United States Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Division as a trial attorney advocating on behalf of victims of housing discrimination.
“I have a very deep respect for Professors Bennett Capers, Tanya K. Hernández, and Kimani Paul-Emile and the work that they do and have done through the Center,” Brown said. “The Center’s work interrogating race is something I consider to be in my wheelhouse, and I think this is a great opportunity for synergy in many respects and I hope to add value to its current and future work.”
Upcoming Center Events:
Law Firm and Corporate Diversity post SFFA v Harvard
September 27, 4:00-5:30 p.m. (virtual)
Concretely Transforming the Legal Profession
October 12, 6:00-7:30 p.m. (in-person, reception to follow)
October 18, 4:00-5:30 p.m. (virtual)
October 25, 4:00-6:00 p.m. (in-person)
In Conversation with Judge Analisa Torres, Dean’s Alumni of Distinction Series
November 8, 6:00-7:00 p.m. (in-person, reception to follow)
Afrofuturism(s) and the Law
November 9-10 (Colloquium at Georgetown University Law Center)
