Harris was born in 1961. She received her bachelor’s degree in English in 1981 from the University of Michigan and her master’s in sociology in 1983 from the University of Chicago. She earned her JD in 1986 from the University of Chicago Law School. After taking her law degree, she clerked for Judge Joel Flaum of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and then worked as an associate for Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco. Returning to Academia in 1988, she joined the faculty of the University of California Berkeley School of Law. From 2011 until her retirement in 2017, Harris was Distinguished Professor of Law occupying the Boochever and Bird Endowed Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom and Equality at the University of California Davis School of Law, where her areas of teaching expertise included critical race theory, feminist legal theory, and criminal law.

A former Research Affiliate with UC-Davis’s Center for Poverty Research, Harris is the author of a number of widely reprinted and influential articles and essays in critical legal theory, feminist legal theory, and critical race theory. Prominent among many other notable interventions is her contribution on “Critical Race Theory” to the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences.^[5] Harris has authored, co-authored, or edited some 10 books (see below), and has contributed numerous essays to volumes edited by others, in addition to publishing articles in such high-prestige peer-reviewed journals as Fordham Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and California Law Review.

Harris has also been extremely active professionally, having helped to organize or having participated in a great many colloquia, seminars, and workshops on feminist legal theory and critical race theory, at which she has delivered scores of invited talks and lectures. In 2003, she received Berkeley Law School’s coveted Rutter Award for Distinction in Teaching.

Publications:

• Gender and Law: Theory, Doctrine, Commentary (Aspen Law & Business, 1998)
• Race and Races: Cases and Resources for a Diverse America (West Group, 2000; 3rd ed., 2014)
• Crossroads, Directions, and a New Critical Race Theory (Temple University Press, 2002)
• When Markets Fail: Race and Economics (Foundation Press, 2005)
• A Woman’s Place Is in the Marketplace: Gender and Economics (Foundation Press, 2005)
• Cultural Economics: Markets and Culture (Foundation Press, 2005)
• Economic Justice: Race, Gender, Identity and Economics (Foundation Press, 2005; 2nd ed., 2010)
• Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (2nd ed., West Academic Publishing, 2009; 3rd ed., 2014)
• Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia (University Press of Colorado, 2012)
• Race and Equality Law (Routledge, 2013)

Source: https://thebestschools.org/features/black-scholars-you-should-know/