Oral history interview with Patricia Williams, 2015

Biographical Note

Patricia Williams received her B.A. from Wellesley in 1972 and J.D. from Harvard in 1975. She practiced as deputy city attorney at the Office of the Los Angeles City Attorney and as staff lawyer at the Western Center on Law and Poverty. Williams has served on the faculties of the University of Wisconsin School of Law, City University of New York Law School, and Golden Gate University School of Law. She came to Columbia in 1991. She was also a Fellow, at the School of Criticism and Theory, Dartmouth College, and at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Her publications have focused on the areas of race, gender, and law, and on other issues of legal theory and legal writing. Books include The Alchemy of Race and Rights; The Rooster's Egg and Seeing a Color Blind Future: The Paradox of Race. Williams has also served as a columnist for The Nation, been a MacArthur fellow, and served on the Board of Trustees at Wellesley College

Scope and Contents

Patricia Williams begins this interview by discussing how she came to Columbia University in 1991, explaining how she both followed Martha Fineman, creator of the Feminism and Legal Theory Project, from the University of Wisconsin and was drawn to Columbia by IRWGS. Williams addresses her subsequent involvement with IRWGS and her shifting relationship between the Institute and the Columbia Law School. Williams describes how she entered into academia without any prior experience working in a law firm, how her commitment to writing defined her career despite her field (particularly in reference to the publication of her book The Alchemy of Race and Rights) and how she was the first and only Black woman in nearly all of her workplaces. Furthermore, Williams discusses the changes in demographics of law school, both amongst students and the faculty. Williams analyzes IRWGS as an inclusive and interdisciplinary institute. Other topics that Williams addresses include: her early and continued devotion to writing; her time at Queens College, the Golden Gate University School of Law, and the School of Criticism and Theory at Dartmouth College; her mentorship with Derrick A. Bell, Jr.; political correctness; sexual assault on college campuses; and Emma Sulkowicz's Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight).

Subjects

• College teachers--Interviews.
• Columbia University. Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
• Columbia University. School of Law.
• Critical legal studies--United States
• Feminism and Legal Theory Project.
• Feminist theory.
• Interdisciplinary approach in education.
• Interviews.
• Lawyers--Interviews.
• Murphy, Kristin L., interviewer.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Williams, Patricia J., 1951---Interviews.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 2015