Biography

An expert on civil rights and antidiscrimination law, Richard Thompson Ford (BA ’88) has distinguished himself as an insightful voice and compelling writer on questions of race and multiculturalism. His scholarship combines social criticism and legal analysis and he writes for both popular readers and for academic and legal specialists. His work has focused on the social and legal conflicts surrounding claims of discrimination, on the causes and effects of racial segregation, and on the use of territorial boundaries as instruments of social regulation. Methodologically, his work is at the intersection of critical theory and the law.

Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1994, Professor Ford was a Reginald F. Lewis Fellow at Harvard Law School, a litigation associate with Morrison & Foerster, and a housing policy consultant for the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has also been a Commissioner of the San Francisco Housing Authority. He has written for the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor and for Slate, where he is a regular contributor. His latest book is The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse.

Key Works

• Richard Thompson Ford, The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse , New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, January 2008.
• Richard Thompson Ford, Racial Culture: A Critique, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
• Richard Thompson Ford, Brown's Ghost, 117 Harvard Law Review 1305-1333 (March 2004).
• Richard Thompson Ford, Law's Territory (A History of Jurisdiction), 97 Michigan Law Review 843-930 (1999).
• Richard Thompson Ford, The Boundaries of Race: Political Geography in Legal Analysis, 107 Harvard Law Review 1841-1921 (1994).

In the News

• My Daily Read: Richard Thompson Ford
  The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 16, 2011
• Misunderstanding Racial Justice
  The New York Times - Sunday Book Review, November 14, 2011
• Race, Violence ... Justice? Looking Back At Jena 6
  National Public Radio (NPR), August 30, 2011

Courses & Programs

Courses

• Critical Theory
• Employment Discrimination
• Local Government Law

Publications & Cases

Recent Publications View All

• Richard Thompson Ford, "Civil Rights and Diminishing Returns: Time for a New Approach to Social Injustice, ACS BookTalk, February 2, 2012.
• Richard Thompson Ford, Universal Rights Down to Earth, New York: W.W. Norton, 2011.
• Richard Thompson Ford, Why Civil Rights Lawsuits Are Becoming Irrelevant in the Fight For Social Justice, Slate, Nov. 3, 2011.
• Richard Thompson Ford, Why It’s Not Always Best to Treat Education as a Civil Right, Slate, Nov. 2, 2011.
• Richard Thompson Ford, How the Civil Rights Movement Led to a Ban on Ladies' Nights, Slate, Nov. 1, 2011.
• Richard Thompson Ford, Moving Beyond Civil Rights, New York Times, Oct. 28, 2011, p. A23.
• Richard Thompson Ford, Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality , New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
• Richard Thompson Ford, When We Talk about Race, Book review of: The End of Anger: A New Generation's Take on Race and Rage by Ellis Cose, New York Times Book Review, July 3, 2011, p. 12.
• Richard Thompson Ford, Everyday Discrimination: Why the Wal-Mart Sex-Bias Lawsuit Is the Most Important Case the Supreme Court Will Hear This Year, Slate, March 28, 2011.
• Richard Thompson Ford, A State's Right; Why States, Like Michigan, Have the Power to Take Over Local Governments, Slate, March 15, 2011.

Affiliations & Honors

Professional Affiliations

• Member, Directing Committee of the Modern Thought and Literature Program
• Member, Urban Studies Faculty