Lani Guinier, a specialist in the area of voting rights law, has been named a professor of law at the Law School. She will begin teaching at the School in the fall of 1998.

Guinier is currently professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Her teaching interests range from voting rights, professional responsibility, criminal process, and public interest lawyering to issues of race and gender. She has written widely on topics related to voting rights, democratic theory, affirmative action, and legal education. She coauthored a major study of women and law school.

Law School Dean Robert Clark said, "I am delighted that Professor Guinier has accepted our offer of a tenured professorship at Harvard Law School. She is a gifted and extraordinarily effective teacher, as the students who had her when she visited here will attest. She is also a first-rate scholar who has produced extremely important work. Her presence will further the mission of Harvard Law School to produce the best possible legal education and scholarship. I also expect her appointment will help the School to attract other top scholars of diverse backgrounds, including more women of color."

Guinier said, "I am happy to join a university that is building a remarkable corps of public intellectuals devoted to issues of race and equality. I intend to help the Law School engage more directly with that activity. Though I am the first woman of color to join the tenured faculty, I know that I will not be the last, and this is important to me. I am acutely aware that in joining the faculty, I am building on the accomplishments of other women of color and people of all colors in legal education, especially those who have taught at Harvard Law School and who helped establish the path of excellence, innovation, and grace under fire."

Guinier received the B.A. in 1971 from Radcliffe College and the J.D. in 1974 from Yale Law School. She clerked for Judge Damon Keith of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan from 1974 to 1976, was a juvenile court referee in Wayne County, Michigan, from 1976 to 1977, was special assistant to the assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1977 to 1981, and was assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York City from 1981 to 1988. She joined the University of Pennsylvania Law School faculty as associate professor in 1988 and received tenure in 1992.

Guinier was visiting professor at Harvard Law School during the 1996 Winter Term, teaching Law and the Political Process.

Guinier is the author of the soon-to-be-published book, Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice (forthcoming April 1998), as well as two other significant books, Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School and Institutional Change (with Michelle Fine and Jane Balin; 1997) and The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy (1994). Among her articles are "The Future of Affirmative Action: Reclaiming the Innovative Ideal," (with Susan Strum) California Law Review (1996); "[E]racing Democracy: The Voting Rights Cases," Harvard Law Review (1994); "Groups, Representation, and Race-Conscious Districting: A Case of the Emperor's Clothes," Texas Law Review (1993); "The Triumph of Tokenism: The Voting Rights Act and the Theory of Black Electoral Success," Michigan Law Review (1991); and "No Two Seats: The Elusive Quest for Political Equality," Virginia Law Review (1991). Guinier has received numerous honors and awards but the one that is most important to her is the 1994 Harvey Levin award for Excellence in Teaching, presented by the University of Pennsylvania Class of 1994.