Verna Williams

(Distinguished Professor/Endowed Chair)

Verna L. Williams is the Judge Joseph P. Kinneary Professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.  Her courses include Constitutional Law, Gender and the Law, and Family Law.  A founder and co-director of the College’s Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice, Professor Williams’s research examines the intersection of race, gender, and class in such areas as education law and policy. Prior to joining the faculty in 2001, Professor Williams was Vice President and Director of Educational Opportunities at the National Women’s Law Center, where she focused on issues of gender equity in education. In that capacity, Professor Williams was lead counsel and successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, which established that Title IX requires educational institutions to address known complaints of student-to-student sexual harassment.  Professor Williams also practiced at the Department of Justice and with the firm of Sidley Austin LLP, and clerked for the Honorable David S. Nelson in the District of Massachusetts.   She graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and Georgetown University.