Stanford Law Professor to Address U.S. Race Relations
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass - Richard Thompson Ford, the George E. Osborne professor of law at Stanford Law School, will deliver the annual W. Allison Davis '24 and John A. Davis '33 Lecture "Race Relations in the USA" at Williams College. The lecture is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 6, at 8 p.m. in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall. It is open to the public and free.Specializing in civil rights and anti-discrimination law, Ford has distinguished himself as an insightful voice and compelling writer on questions of race and multiculturalism.
Ford's recent book, "The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse," was published in January 2008 and he is the author of "Racial Culture: A Critique" (2005).
In reviewing "The Race Card" in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Carlo Romano answered the question "Does Ford believe racism no longer exists in American society?" "Not at all. Accusations of racism should be kept to such cases. But social problems that stem from multiple factors call for an eye on the big picture, not single-cause reductionism."
He writes for both the academic and legal community and for the general public, focusing on the social and legal conflicts surrounding claims of discrimination, on the causes and effects of racial segregation, and on the use of territorial boundaries as instruments of social regulation.
At Stanford, Ford teaches Critical Theory, Employment Discrimination, Local Government Law, and Local Initiatives.
Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty, he was a Reginald F. Lewis Fellow at the Harvard law School, a litigation associate with Morrison & Foerster, and a housing policy consultant for the City of Cambridge, Mass. He has also been a commissioner of the San Francisco Housing Authority.
He received his B.A. from Stanford University in 1988 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1991.
The event is sponsored by The Oakley Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
