Mari J. Matsuda is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 lawyer, activist, and law professor at the William S. Richardson School of Law

William S. Richardson School of Law

The William S. Richardson School of Law is a public, co-educational institution of the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in Honolulu, Hawaii. Named after the beloved Hawaii State Supreme Court Chief Justice William S. Richardson, it is the only law school in the State of Hawaii...

. Matsuda returned to Richardson in the fall of 2008. Prior to her return to Hawaii, Matsuda was a professor at Georgetown University Law Center

Georgetown University Law Center

Georgetown University Law Center is the law school of Georgetown University, located in Washington, D.C.. Established in 1870, the Law Center offers J.D., LL.M., and S.J.D. degrees in law...

, specializing in the fields of tort

Tort

A tort, in common law jurisdictions, is a wrong that involves a breach of a civil duty owed to someone else. It is differentiated from a crime, which involves a breach of a duty owed to society in general...

s, constitutional law

Constitutional law

Constitutional law is the body of law which defines the relationship of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary....

, legal history

Legal history

Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilizations and is set in the wider context of social history...

, feminist theory

Feminist theory

Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical discourse, it aims to understand the nature of gender inequality...

, critical race theory

Critical race theory

Critical Race Theory is an academic discipline focused upon the intersection of race, law and power.Although no set of canonical doctrines or methodologies defines CRT, the movement is loosely unified by two common areas of inquiry...

, and civil rights

Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...

 law.

Biography

Matsuda obtained her B.A.

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 from Arizona State University

Arizona State University

Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...

, her J.D.

Juris Doctor

Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...

 from the University of Hawaii

University of Hawaii

The University of Hawaii System, formally the University of Hawaii and popularly known as UH, is a public, co-educational college and university system that confers associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees through three university campuses, seven community college campuses, an employment...

, and her LL.M., Harvard. She was an associate at the labor law firm of King & Nakamura in Honolulu and was law clerk to Judge Herbert Young Cho Choy of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona...

. She is of Okinawan

Ryukyuans

The are the indigenous peoples of the Ryukyu Islands between the islands of Kyūshū and Taiwan. The generally recognized subgroups of Ryukyuans are Amamians, Okinawans, Miyakoans, Yaeyamans, and Yonagunians. Geographically, they live in either Okinawa Prefecture or Kagoshima Prefecture...

 ancestry.

She became the first tenured female Asian American

Asian American

Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...

 law professor in the United States, at University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

 (UCLA) School of Law in 1998. Before joining the faculty at UCLA, she was professor of law for eight years at the University of Hawaii School of Law, teaching American Legal History, Torts, Constitutional Law, Civil Rights, and Sex Discrimination. Professor Matsuda has also taught at Stanford Law School

Stanford Law School

Stanford Law School is a graduate school at Stanford University located in the area known as the Silicon Valley, near Palo Alto, California in the United States. The Law School was established in 1893 when former President Benjamin Harrison joined the faculty as the first professor of law...

 and the University of Hiroshima and served as a judicial training consultant in Micronesia

Micronesia

Micronesia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It is distinct from Melanesia to the south, and Polynesia to the east. The Philippines lie to the west, and Indonesia to the southwest....

 and South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. She is a self-described as an "activist scholar." Her intellectual influence extends beyond law reviews (she authored three entries on a Yale Law School

Yale Law School

Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...

 librarian's list of the ten most-cited law review articles) to include articles in academic and popular journals such as Amerasia Journal and Ms. Magazine

Ms. magazine

Ms. is an American feminist magazine co-founded by American feminist and activist Gloria Steinem and founding editor Letty Cottin Pogrebin together with founding editors Patricia Carbine, Joanne Edgar, Nina Finkelstein, and Mary Peacock, that first appeared in 1971 as an insert in New York magazine...

. She is one of the leading voices in critical race theory

Critical race theory

Critical Race Theory is an academic discipline focused upon the intersection of race, law and power.Although no set of canonical doctrines or methodologies defines CRT, the movement is loosely unified by two common areas of inquiry...

 since its inception. Her publications on reparations and affirmative action are frequently cited.

As a frequent keynote speaker, she has lectured at major universities. As a board member of the Chevron-Texaco Task Force on Equality and Fairness, she coauthored its final report in 2002, and she received the 2003 Society of American Law Teachers Human Rights Award at the Association of American Law Schools

Association of American Law Schools

The Association of American Law Schools is a non-profit organization of 170 law schools in the United States. Another 25 schools are "non-member fee paid" schools, which are not members but choose to pay AALS dues. Its purpose is to improve the legal profession through the improvement of legal...

 Conference.

She has served as a judicial training consultant in countries as diverse as Micronesia and South Africa, and her work is quoted by Supreme Court

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

 Justices. For Matsuda, community is linked to teaching and scholarship. She serves on national advisory boards of social justice organizations, including the ACLU, the National Asian Pacific Legal Consortium, and Ms. Magazine. She was recognized by Ms. Magazine as one of the 100 most influential Asian Americans for her representation of Manual Fragante accent discrimination case, and others. Judge Richard Posner

Richard Posner

Richard Allen Posner is an American jurist, legal theorist, and economist who is currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School...

lists Mari Matsuda as among those scholars most likely to have lasting influence.

Books

• And Charles R. Lawrence, III, We Won't Go Back: Making the Case for Affirmative Action (Houghton Mifflin 1997).
• Where Is Your Body? And Other Essays on Race, Gender and Law (Beacon Press 1996).
• And Charles R. Lawrence, III, et al., Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment (Westview Press 1993).
• Called From Within: Early Women Lawyers of Hawaii (Mari J. Matsuda ed., University of Hawaii Press 1992).

Book chapters

• "Beyond and Not Beyond, Black and White: Deconstruction Has a Politics," in Crossroads, Directions, and a New Critical Race Theory 393 (Francisco Valdes et al. Eds., Temple U. Press 2002).
• "Civil Society," in Essays on Civil Society (Virginia Hodgkinson & Mark Warren eds., forthcoming).
• "Law and Culture in the District Court of Honolulu, 1844-1845: A Case Study of the Rise of Legal Consciousness," in 2 Asian Indians, Filipinos, Other Asian Communities, and the Law 190 (Charles McClain ed., Garland Pub. 1994) (reprinting 32 Am. J. Legal Hist. 16 (1988)).
• "Harriet Bouslog," in Called From Within: Early Women Lawyers of Hawaii 148 (Mari J. Matsuda ed., University of Hawaii Press 1992).

Journal Articles

• "Who is Excellent," 1 Seattle J. Soc. Just. 29 (2003).
• "I and Thou and We and the Way to Peace," Issues Legal Scholarship (Aug. 2002), available at http://www.bepress.com/ils/iss2/art6.
• "What Would It Take to Feel Safe?," 27 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 78 (2001/2002).
• "Asian Americans and the Peace Initiative," 27/28 Amerasia J. 141 (2001/2002).
• Et al., "Symposium: Building a Multiracial Social Justice Movement, Questions from the Audience," 27 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 82 (2001/2002).
• "Planet Asian America," 8 Asian L.J. 169 (2001).
• "Foreword: Homophobia as Terrorism," 1 Geo. J. Gender & L. 1 (1999).
• "McCarthyism, the Internment and the Contradictions of Power," 40 B.C. L. Rev. 9 (1999).
• "Opinion: Guilt by Admissions," Ms., June/July 1999, at 29 (discussing feminism and affirmative action).
• "Crime and Affirmative Action," 1 J. Gender Race & Just. 309 (1998).
• "Were You There? Witnessing Welfare Retreat (In Memory of Professor Trina Grillo)," 31 U.S.F. L. Rev. 779 (1997).
• "Merit Badges for the Revolution," Ms., Aug./Sep. 1997, at 94.
• "Is Hawaii America's Tomorrow?," Address at Harvard University, Holoimua, Hawaii (1997).
• "The Keynote Address: Progressive Civil Liberties," 3 Temple Pol. & Civ. Rts. L. Rev. 9 (1993-1994).
• "We Will Not Be Used," UCLA Asian Am. Pac. Islands LJ, now known as: UCLA Asian Pac. Am. LJ (1993).
• "When the First Quail Calls: Multiple Consciousness as Jurisprudential Method," 14 Women's Rts. L. Rep. 297 (1992).
• "Besides My Sister, Facing the Enemy: Legal Theory Out of Coalition," 43 Stan. L. Rev. 1183 (1991).
• "Voices of America: Accent, Antidiscrimination Law and Jurisprudence for the Last Reconstruction," 100 Yale L.J. 1329 (1991)
• "Public Response for Racist Speech: Considering the Victim’s Story," 87 Mich. L. Rev. 2320 (1989)
• "Looking to the Bottom: Critical Legal Studies and Reparations," 22 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties L. Rev. 323 (1987)