Prof. Chin’s scholarship on disability law, sexuality, and social justice earns Jerome Krase/Sandi Cooper Award, CUNY’s highest research honor for associate professors
CUNY School of Law is proud to announce that Professor Natalie M. Chin, Director of the Disability Rights and Social Justice Clinic, has been named one of the inaugural recipients of the Jerome Krase/Sandi Cooper Award for Outstanding Research for Associate Professors, a new distinction established by the CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences to honor exceptional scholarly contributions within the University.
Professor Chin was selected for her innovative and important scholarship at the intersection of disability law, sexual rights and social justice. Her research has advanced our understanding of legal frameworks by challenging the shortcomings of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in protecting disabled communities of color, while also imagining its possibilities for advancing the sexual rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Professor Chin’s work examines how structural systems and institutional oversight normalize the subjugation of disabled people.
“Professor Chin’s scholarship represents the kind of critical, justice-oriented inquiry that defines CUNY Law’s academic community,” said Dean Sudha Setty. “This recognition affirms both her contributions to the legal academy and CUNY’s reputation for producing nationally recognized scholarship. As a public law school committed to access and transformation, we are proud to support research that helps reimagine the law’s role in building a more just society.”
Through doctrinal analysis, interdisciplinary insight, and clinical engagement, her work offers an urgent rethinking of legal mechanisms and calls for advocates to think “creatively in how to foster a disability rights future that foregrounds principles of Disability Justice” to re-image a “future beyond the limits of the ADA” Professor Chin’s innovative scholarship has become essential reading for advocates, scholars and policymakers working at the intersection of disability rights, justice, and legal reform. Her most recent article, “The Structural Desexualization of Disability,” published in the Columbia Law Review, creates a new framework to “identify the ways that legal structures and social norms act in concert to harm people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in matters of sexuality.” In her piece, “Centering Disability Justice,” she argues that “the absence of a critical racism/ableism analysis” in disability rights advocacy is subsuming the goals envisioned by the ADA. In her earlier piece, “Group Homes as Sex Police and the Role of the Olmstead Integration Mandate,” Professor Chin argues for the application of federal disability rights law as a tool to elevate the sexual rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities so that it is viewed as “an essential aspect of full community integration.”
These works exemplify her interdisciplinary rigor and the national relevance of her contributions to the field.
In addition to her published scholarship, Professor Chin serves as the Director of the Disability Rights and Social Justice Clinic, where she engages with students to confront ableism and its intersection with race, gender, and class through direct client representation, policy and appellate advocacy, and community education. The Clinic’s docket addresses guardianship restoration, incarceration, sexual rights, and access to public services, modeling a legal practice rooted in anti-ableist frameworks and structural critique.
Reflecting on the honor, Professor Chin said:
“I’m honored to receive the Krase/Cooper Award in recognition of scholarship that both interrogates how legal and societal structures systematically deny sexual agency and self-determination to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and challenges the limitations of the federal disability rights framing in advancing the rights of multiply marginalized disabled populations. This research is part of a broader project to expose and dismantle the mechanisms through which the law pathologizes disability and constrains autonomy. To have this work recognized within the University signals a commitment to scholarship that engages power and centers disability.”
Professor Charisa Kiyô Smith, Director of Faculty Development, coordinated the nomination and emphasized the significance of the recognition:
“Professor Chin’s recognition affirms the intellectual rigor and social justice orientation that define faculty research at CUNY Law. Her work exemplifies how our faculty interrogates legal systems through critical, practice-informed inquiry. As part of CUNY’s broader academic community, we are proud to contribute to a public university tradition of scholarship that is both excellent and urgent in these times—grounded in lived experience and committed to structural change.”
The Krase/Cooper Award, named for two distinguished CUNY faculty members and leaders, is the first University-wide research honor created specifically for associate professors. Professor Chin’s selection is a testament not only to her individual scholarly excellence but also to the vibrant, justice-centered intellectual community at CUNY Law.