Biography
Interim Dean
Professor of Law
J.D., 1991, University of Michigan
B.A., 1984, Howard University
Biography
Professor Lisa A. Crooms-Robinson teaches Constitutional Law, Gender and the Law, International Human Rights Law and Supreme Court Jurisprudence. Professor Crooms received her B.A. in Economics from Howard University and her J.D. from the University of Michigan.
Currently, Professor Crooms-Robinson is a board member for the Center for Constitutional Rights and the U.S. Human Rights Network. She has also served as either an advisor to or a member of The Urban Justice Center, Unifem, the Sentencing Project, the International Human Rights Law Group (Global Rights), Amnesty International - U.S.A., the Human Rights at Home Campaign, the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, the Women’s Institute for Leadership Development for Human Rights, the Pauli Murray Project, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Its Causes and Consequences, and the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity.
She was also a Fulbright Scholar at the Norman Manley Law School – University of the West Indies, Mona Campus in Jamaica where she conducted research on the relationship between gender, violence and law in the construction of Jamaican post-independence national identity.
Publications
“All man come together and said boys mus’ dead”: Hyper-heterosexuality,
Afro-Jamaican Culture, and the 1997 Condom Riots, in Sex, Power and
Taboo: Gender and HIV in the Caribbean and Beyond (Ian Randle 2008)
Henry Louis Gates Jr., Claude Steele, Lawrence D. Bobo, Michael Dawson, Gerald Jaynes, Lisa Crooms-Robinson, & Linda Darling-Hammond, The Oxford Handbook of African American Citizenship, 1865 – Present (Oxford University Press, 2012)
Judith Greenberg, Martha Minow, Dorothy Roberts, Libby Adler & Lisa Crooms, eds, Mary Joe Frug’s Women and the Law (4th ed., Foundation Press 2008)
JUDITH GREENBERG, MARTHA MINOW, DOROTHY ROBERTS, LIBBY ADLER & LISA CROOMS, EDS., MARY JOE FRUG’S WOMEN AND THE LAW (4th ed., Foundation Press/forthcoming 2007)
“All man come together and said boys mus’ dead”: Hyper-heterosexuality, Afro-Jamaican Culture, and the 1997 Condom Riots, University of the West Indies, Centre for Gender and Development Studies (forthcoming 2007)
Remembering the Days of Slavery: Plantations, Reparations, and Contracts, 26 HAWAII L. REV. 405 (2004)
Race, Education, and the District of Columbia: Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of Bolling v. Sharpe, 16:2 WASHINGTON HISTORY J. 15 (2004-05)
Picturing Poverty II (1960s-present) in POVERTY IN THE UNITED STATES: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HISTORY, POLITICS, AND POLICY 544 (G. Mink & A. O’Connor, eds. 2004)
The Violence of Gender and the Gender of Violence: Law, Gender and Violence in FOR THE COMMON GOOD: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF LAW AND SOCIAL CONTROL 115 (2004)
Symposium: Critical Race Praxis: “To Establish My Legitimate Name Inside the Consciousness of Strangers”: Critical Race Praxis, Progressive Women-of-Color Theorizing, and Human Rights, 46 HOWARD L. J. 229 (2003).
The Mythical, Magical Underclass: Making the Public Private and the Private Public 5 J. GENDER, RACE & JUSTICE 87 (2001)
Intersectionality, Human Rights, and Demarginalizing Black Women in RACE, GENDER, ETHNICITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AMERICAS: A NEW PARADIGM FOR ACTIVISM 77 (C. Romany ed. 2001)
Using a Multi-Tiered Analysis to Reconceptualize Gender-Based Violence against Women as a Matter of International Human Rights, 33 NEW ENGLAND L. REV. 881 (1999)
“Everywhere There’s War”: A Racial Realist’s Reconsideration of Hate Crimes Statutes 1 GEO. J. OF GENDER & LAW 41 (1999)
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program and the Human Rights of Poor Single Women of Color and Their Children, WOMEN’S PROGRESS: PERSPECTIVES ON THE PAST, BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE (Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 1998)
Families, Fatherlessness and Women’s Human Rights: An Analysis of the Clinton Administration’s Public Housing Policy as a Violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 36 BRANDEIS SCHOOL OF LAW J. OF FAMILY L. 1 (1997/98)
Symposium: U.S. Obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination: Indivisible Rights and Intersectional Identities or ”What Do Women’s Human Rights Have to Do with the Race Convention?”, 40 HOWARD L.J. 619 (1997)
Symposium: Speaking Truth to Power: The Jurisprudence of Julia Cooper Mack: Speaking Partial Truths and Preserving Power: Deconstructing White Supremacy, Patriarchy, and the Rape Corroboration Rule in the Interest of Black Liberation 40 HOWARD L.J. 459 (1997)
An Age of [Im]Possibility: Welfare Reform, Rhetoric and Poverty Book Review: JOEL F. HANDLER, THE POVERTY OF WELFARE REFORM, MARK ROBERT RANK, LIVING ON THE EDGE: THE REALITIES OF WELFARE IN AMERICA, 94 MICH. L. REV. 1953 (1996)
Stepping Into the Projects: Lawmaking, Storytelling and Practicing A Politics of Identification 1 MICH. J. OF RACE & L. 1 (1996)
Don’t Believe the Hype: Black Women, Patriarchy and the New Welfarism, 38 HOWARD L.J. 611 (1995)
Single Motherhood, the Rhetoric of Poverty and Welfare Reform: A Case of Gender Discrimination in the United States in FROM BASIC NEEDS TO BASIC RIGHTS: SHAPING THE WOMEN’S RIGHTS AGENDA FOR THE 90S AND BEYOND, The Institute for Women, Law & Development (1995)
Professional Contributions
Shadow Reporting and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, International Human Rights Funders Group, New York, NY, 2007
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Shadow Reporting Process and Building a U.S. Human Rights Movement, U.S. Social Forum, Atlanta, GA, 2007
Using Human Rights in Clinical Education, AALS, New Orleans, LA, 2007
Why We Need a U.S. Human Rights Movement, Women’s Institute for Leadership Development for Human Rights – Tenth Anniversary, San Francisco, CA, 2007
Using International Human Rights Treaties, Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Conference, Houston, TX, 2006
Is America Still the Beacon of Freedom?, ACLU Membership Conference, Washington, D.C., 2006
Senior Coordinator, Bringing Human Rights Home Coalition, New York, Washington, D.C. and Geneva, Switzerland, 2006
Critical Race Theory and the Continuing Significance of Race, Critical Race Theory Project, Georgetown Law Center, Washington, D.C., 2006
The Changing Face of Lawyering, 41st Criminal Practice Institute, Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C., 2005
The Right to Be a Mother, Reproductive Justice for All: A U.S. Policy Conference, Northampton, MA, 2005
Human Rights as Anti-Oppression Practice: An Intersectional Approach, U.S. Human Rights Network, Atlanta, GA, 2005
Using Human Rights Treaties, Fifth Bi-Annual Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Conference, Memphis, TN, 2004
Economic Rights, Human Rights CLE Panel, NAACP Annual Convention, Philadelphia, PA, 2004
Hyperheterosexuality and Jamaica’s 1997 Condom Riots, University of the West Indies/CARICOM Conference on Gender, Sexuality, Substance Abuse and HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean, St. Augustine, Trinidad, 2004
Security and Liberty, Norman Manley Law School, University of the West Indies – Mona Campus, Jamaica, 2003
Gender, Violence and Law, Responding to Violence: Feminist Alternatives Colloquium, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY, 2002
Ending Exceptionalism: Strengthening Human Rights in the United States, Howard University School of Law, Washington, D.C., 2002
Back to the Middle, Black Feminist Thought, Multidimensional Identity and the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Hull Lecture in Women’s Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2002
Welfare Reform as State Violence against Poor Women of Color, The Color of Violence/INCITE!, Chicago, IL, 2002
A Black Community National Dialogue: War, Terrorism and Peace, Black Voices for Peace and Black Law Students’ Association, Washington, D.C., 2001
The Challenges of Building a Human Rights Movement in the Twenty-First Century, Amnesty International-U.S.A. Southern Region Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, 2001
Making the Connections - U.S. Human Rights Violations at Home and Abroad, U.N. World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Durban, South Africa, 2001
Congressional Black Caucus Task Force on the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Washington, D.C., 2001
Identity-Based Human Rights Violations, Amnesty International-U.S.A. Annual General Meeting, Nashville, TN, 2001
Delegation Training for the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Women’s Institute for Leadership Development for Human Rights, San Francisco, CA, 2000-2001
A Radical/Progressive Critique of Hate Crimes, UCLA Chicano-Chicana Law Review Symposium, Los Angeles, CA, 2000
Making the Connections: Human Rights in the United States, Women’s Institute for Leadership Development for Human Rights and the Shaler Adams Foundation, Mill Valley, CA, 1999
Black Women, Feminism and Violence, Exploring the Boundaries of Black Feminism, University of Illinois - Chicago, Chicago, IL, 1999
Using CERD and CEDAW in U.S. Human Rights Activism, Amnesty International-USA National Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, 1999
Ethnicity, Race and Gender: Intersections in the Americas, Opportunities for Dialogue and Advancement within the International Human Rights Framework, New York, NY, 1999
Reconceptualizing Gender-Based Violence against Women as a Matter of International Human Rights, Anna M. Hirsch Lecture on Women and the Law, New England School of Law, Boston, MA, 1999
Poverty as a Human Rights Violation, Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Conference, Jackson, MS, 1998
From Aspiration to Activism: Economic and Social Rights in the U.S., Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, New York, NY. 1998
Implementing the Race Convention at the Intersection of Race and Gender, International Law Association-American Branch, New York, NY, 1998
Training on the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Women’s Institute for Leadership Development for Human Rights, San Francisco, CA, 1998
International Human Rights Law and the Potential for Radical Lawyering, Black Radical Congress, Chicago, IL, 1998
A Dialogue on the Impact of Welfare Reform Upon Women of Color, Women of Color Welfare Reform Advocacy Group, New York, NY, 1998
Themes for a Conversation on Race, Ethnicity and Gender in International Human Rights Law, Seminar on Women and Society, Columbia University, New York, NY, 1997
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program and International Human Rights Law, Research Network on Gender, State and Society Annual Workshop, Washington, D.C., 1997
Mission to South Africa Regarding the Medico-Legal System’s Response to Domestic Violence and Rape, Human Rights Watch-Women’s Rights Division, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1996
Examining the Overall Social, Economic and Political Context in Which the Black Feminist Project Is Situated, African American Agenda 2000 Black Feminist Retreat, Ossining, NY, 1996