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W. Haywood Burns Program in Human & Civil Rights

 

2024–25 W. Haywood Burns Chair

James Forman Jr.

J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law at Yale Law School
Faculty Director of the Yale Law and Racial Justice Center

James Forman Jr.

“Recruiting the next generation of public interest lawyers is one of the foundational and fundamental challenges that we face in the legal profession today. Law has always been an exclusionary institution that set itself up to protect the powerful and to keep the powerless out.

“If we’re going to change that, we have to create pipelines and pathways so that the diversity that is America can be represented in the legal profession.

“The chance to join CUNY Law’s mission to do precisely that, and be in conversation with CUNY Law students, is exciting. Together, greatness is going to happen.”

James Forman Jr.

Biography

About James Forman Jr.

James Forman Jr. is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and expert on the race and class dimensions of schools, police, and prisons whose work focuses on racial justice in higher education and the criminal legal system. Building upon his exploration of racial exclusion in American education and pathways for access to legal education, Professor Forman examines practical interventions to address the harms of mass incarceration.

His work as Burns Chair drew upon the anthology Dismantling Mass Incarceration: A Handbook for Change. Professor Forman has developed innovative educational opportunities, including Yale Law’s Access to Law School Program and the Maya Angelou School in Washington, D.C., to serve underserved and justice-impacted youth and adults. Under his leadership, Yale Law School launched its first center dedicated to developing and implementing projects that advance racial justice.

A graduate of Brown University and Yale Law School, Professor Forman has received honorary degrees from Macalester College and Niagara University. He is a Trustee of the Council on Criminal Justice, a member of the American Law Institute, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society in 2023.

Professor Forman has written law review articles, op-eds, and essays for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Nation, and The Washington Post.

Honors and awards

  • 2018 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
  • Shortlisted for the National Book Award for Locking Up Our Own
  • Named one of The New York Times 10 Best Books of 2017
  • Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society in 2023

Events and conversations

Panels and events

Archived video

Watch the conversations