John A. Powell (born 1947) is an African-American law professor. He leads the UC Berkeley Othering & Belonging Institute (formerly known as Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society) and holds the Robert D. Haas Chancellor's Chair in Equity and Inclusion, Professor of Law and Professor of African American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

Berkeley School of Law The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of 1 ...

. Powell spells his name in lowercase based on the idea that we should be "part of the universe, not over it, as capitals signify".

Life

Powell was born on May 27, 1947 in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

, Michigan. He was raised by his mother and father, both sharecroppers from the South. His father was a Christian minister. Powell was previously the executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

. He also taught

civil rights law Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

, property law and jurisprudence and held the Earl R. Larson Chair of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law at the

University of Minnesota Law School The University of Minnesota Law School is the law school of the University of Minnesota, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The school confers four law degrees: a Juris Doctor (J.D.), a Master of Laws (LL.M.), a Master of Science in Patent L ...

. He was the founder and former executive director of the Institute on Race and Poverty (IRP), which is located at the University of Minnesota Law School. He has taught at

Columbia University School of Law Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...

, Harvard Law School,

University of Miami School of Law The University of Miami School of Law (Miami Law or UM Law) is the law school of the University of Miami, a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. Founded in 1926, the University of Miami School of Law is the oldest law school i ...

, American University and the

University of San Francisco School of Law The University of San Francisco School of Law (USF Law) is the law school of the private University of San Francisco. Established in 1912, it received American Bar Association accreditation in 1935 and joined the Association of American Law Sc ...

Education

Powell earned a J.D. from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

School of Law and a B.A. from Stanford University. He then became an attorney with the Seattle Public Defender's Office. In 1977, Powell received an International Human Rights Fellowship from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

to work in Africa, where he served as a consultant to the government of

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

. Between 1987 and 1993, he worked as a national legal director of the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

. He is a co-founder of th
Poverty and Race Research Action Council
(PRRAC) and serves on the boards of several national organizations including Tides.

Views

Powell has proposed that white identity was forged in the 17th century in order to police social hierarchy in the

Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th cent ...

of pre-independence America.

Publications

* ''The Rights of Racial Minorities: The Basic ACLU Guide to Racial Minority Rights'', 2nd ed. (with L. McDonald). The American Civil Liberties Union, 1993. * ''The Rights of Racial Minorities: The Basic ACLU Guide to Racial Minority Rights-Young People's Version'' (With L.McDonald). American Civil Liberties Union, 1998. * ''In Pursuit of a Dream Deferred: Linking Housing and Education Policies'' (with Gavin Kearney and Vina Kay). New York:Peter Lang Publishing, 2001. *

References

External links

john powell – CV

john powell – Podcast

john powell – Biography

Profile from UC Berkeley
{{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, John A. American legal scholars African-American legal scholars American legal writers UC Berkeley School of Law faculty University of Minnesota Law School faculty University of Minnesota faculty Ohio State University faculty American civil rights lawyers American Civil Liberties Union people 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers Wasserstein Fellows UC Berkeley School of Law alumni Stanford University alumni 1947 births Living people 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics