FACULTY FOCUS ::
Professor Seana Shiffrin
Honored with 2016 Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching Seana Shiffrin, professor of philosophy and Pete Kameron Professor of Law and Social Justice, was honored with the UCLA Law 2016 Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching. She received the award at the 37th Rutter Award Presentation Ceremony, held at the law school in April. Shiffrin, a member of the UCLA Law faculty since 1996, teaches courses on moral and political philosophy as well as contracts, freedom of speech, constitutional rights and individual autonomy, remedies and legal theory. “As anyone who has taken a course from Professor Shiffrin or observed her teaching can attest, she is someone who deeply and passionately cares about teaching and who successfully places high intellectual demands on our students while treating them with kindness and respect,” UCLA Law School Dean Jennifer L. Mnookin said in announcing Shiffrin as the Rutter Award recipient. “It is wonderful that our community can recognize both her distinction in and commitment to teaching with this award.” Shiffrin’s impact extends well beyond the UCLA Law community. This spring, the University College London Institute for Human Rights — which is part of the UCL Faculty
of Laws in London, one of the world’s leading law schools — hosted a day-long conference dedicated to Shiffrin’s influential book Speech Matters: Lying, Morality and the Law (Princeton University Press, 2014). The book lays out a novel philosophical approach to freedom of speech and applies it to numerous challenging legal and political matters, including the legal regulation of lying and deception, police misrepresentation and restrictions on commercial speech, freedom of speech and academic freedom, and freedom of speech for employees. At the conference, legal and moral philosophers shared thoughts about each chapter and reflected on its relevance in regard to contemporary legal issues. Shiffrin’s research breaks new ground in the realm of moral, political and legal philosophy, as well as in matters of legal doctrine, that concern equality, autonomy and the social conditions for their realization. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served for 16 years as an associate editor of Philosophy and Public Affairs. Shiffrin is co-director of the UCLA Law and Philosophy Program.
Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw
Receives 2016 Outstanding Scholar Award Distinguished Professor of Law Kimberlé Crenshaw has been honored with the 2016 Outstanding Scholar Award from the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. Crenshaw is the first woman of color to receive this honor, which is an annual prize that recognizes exceptional scholarship in the law or in government. Crenshaw is a co-founder and the executive director of the African American Policy Forum, an organization dedicated to dismantling structural inequality. Her work has placed her among Safe Magazine’s “16 Global Heroes Who Go There,” a celebration of activists who support people at risk and victims of violence. In 2015 the Ebony Power 100 featured Crenshaw, who launched the #SayHerName campaign, as a contemporary hero of the black community. She was also named Ms. Magazine’s #1 Most Inspiring Feminist of 2015 for her innovative reports Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected and Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women. Articles she has authored have appeared in publications including The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Harvard Law Review. Crenshaw teaches Civil Rights and other courses in critical race studies and constitutional law and has twice earned recognition as professor of the year. Her commitment to racial justice and gender equality has made her a leading authority on civil rights, black feminist legal theory, race, racism and the law.
20 UCLA LAW MAGAZINE | FALL 2016