Rachel Godsil
Distinguished Professor of Law
Rachel D. Godsil is a Professor at Rutgers Law School and a Chancellor's Social Justice Scholar. She also is the Director of Research and Co-Founder of Perception Institute. She collaborates with social scientists on empirical research and regularly conducts workshops and on the role of implicit bias, racial anxiety, and stereotype threat in key fields, such as education, criminal justice, and healthcare. Her scholarly research also addresses the intersection of race, property, and the environment.
Biography
Rachel Godsil is a Distinguished Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Scholar at Rutgers Law School ands Co-Founder and Senior Advisor for Perception Institute. She collaborates with social scientists on empirical research to identify the efficacy of interventions to address implicit bias, racial anxiety, and stereotype threat. She regularly leads workshops and presentations addressing the role of bias and anxiety associated with race, ethnicity, religion, and gender, focusing on education, criminal justice, health care, and the workplace. Her teaching and research interests include civil rights, constitutional law, property, land use, environmental justice, and education.
Rachel has authored and co-authored numerous articles and book chapters such as: Promoting Fairness? Examining the Efficacy of Implicit Bias Training in the Criminal Justice System (Bias in the Law, 2020), Prosecuting Fairly: Addressing the Challenges of Implicit Bias, Racial Anxiety, and Stereotype Threat (CDAA Prosecutor’s Brief, Vol. 40, No. 2, 2018), Racial Anxiety, 102 Iowa L. Rev. 2235 (2017), The Moral Ecology of Policing: A Mind Science Approach to Race and Policing in the United States in The Routledge Handbook of Criminal Justice Ethics (The Routledge Handbook of Criminal Justice Ethics, 2016); Why Race Matters in Physics Class (64 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. Disc. 40, 2016); Race, Ethnicity, and Place Identity: Implicit Bias and Competing Belief Systems (37 Hawaii L. Rev. 313, 2015), Implicit Bias in the Courtroom, (59 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. 1184, 2012), and A Tale of Two Neighborhoods: Implicit Bias in Environmental Decision-Making, in Implicit Racial Bias in the Law (Cambridge University Press, 2011). She also co-authored amicus briefs on behalf of empirical social psychologists in both iterations of Fisher v. Texas and the National Parent Teacher Association in the Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District litigation at the Supreme Court.
Her work with Perception Institute includes work on narrative, Challenging the Disparities Default: Reframing and Reclaiming Women's Power (2020); a research review with Story At Scale entitled What Are We Up Against? An Intersectional Examination of Stereotypes Associated with Gender? (2020), a toolkit with the Executives’ Alliance, His Story: Shifting Narratives of Boys and Men of Color (2018), and a volume of the PopJustice initiative, Pop Culture, Perceptions, and Social Change: A Research Review (2016). Rachel has led in the creation of research reviews and original resesarch, including The Science of Equality in Education: The Impact of Implicit Bias, Racial Anxiety, and Stereotype Threat on Student Outcomes (2018), The “Good Hair” Study: Explicit and Implicit Attitudes Toward Black Women’s Hair (2017), and The Science of Equality, Volume 2: The Effects of Gender Roles, Implicit Bias, and Stereotype Threat on the Lives of Women and Girls (2016).
Rachel is a member of the Solidarity Council for Racial Equity with the W.K.Kellogg Foundation. She was on on the advisory board for Research, Integration, Strategies, and Evaluation (RISE) for Boys and Men of Color at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education, and is currently on the boards of the Systemic Justice Project at Harvard Law School, and the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. .
Her property work focuses on federal housing policy, gentrification, the mortgage crisis and eminent domain, as well as the intersection of race, poverty, and land use decisions. Recent articles include: The New Tipping Point: Disruptive Politics and Habituating Equality, 70 Emory L.J. 1507 (co-authored with Sarah Waldeck)(2021), Home Equity: Rethinking Race and Federal Housing Policy, 98 Denver L. Rev. 523 (co-authored with Sarah Waldeck)(2020), and Housing Precarity in the Context of Covid (Data for Progress, 2020). Rachel served as Chair of the New York City Rent Guidelines Board in 2014 and 2015. After serving as the convener for the Obama campaign’s Urban and Metropolitan Policy Committee and an advisor to the Department of Housing and Urban Development transition team, Rachel co-directed a report to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan entitled “Retooling HUD for a Catalytic Federal Government.”
Previously, Rachel was Eleanor Bontecou Professor of Law at Seton Hall University Law School. She joined the School of Law in 2000 and was recognized for her teaching by being nominated for Professor of the Year in 2011, 2002 and 2003. In 2003-2004, she was awarded the Researcher of the Year in Law by Seton Hall University. Rachel was a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2007 and taught property at New York University Law School in 2009.
During law school, Rachel served as the Executive Article Editor of the Michigan Law Review, graduated magna cum laude, was awarded the Henry M. Bates Memorial Award and elected to the Order of the Coif. After graduation, she clerked for John M. Walker of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Rachel was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. She was an Associate Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, focusing on environmental justice, as well as an associate with Berle, Kass & Case and Arnold & Porter in New York City.
Publications
Articles
The New Tipping Point: Disruptive Politics and Habituating Equality, 70 Emory L.J. 1507 (co-authored with Sarah Waldeck)(2021)
Home Equity: Rethinking Race and Federal Housing Policy, 98 Denver L. Rev. 523 (co-authored with Sarah Waldeck)(2020)
Rigor and Relationships: The Positive Case for Integration in Schools and Neighborhoods, 40 Cardozo L. Rev.1287 (2019)
Racial Anxiety, 102 Iowa L. Rev. 2235 (co-authored with L. Song Richardson)(2017)
Why Race Matters in Physics Class, 64 U.C.L.A. Law Review Discourse 40 (2016)
Race, Ethnicity, and Place Identity: Implicit Bias and Competing Belief Systems, 37 Hawaii Law Review 313 (co-authored with James Freeman)(2015)
The Gentrification Trigger: Autonomy, Mobility, and Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, 78 Brooklyn Law Review 319 (2013)
A Multiplicity of Interests, Columbia Journal of Race and Law Special Feature (2012)
View from the Gallery – Oral Argument in Fisher v. University of Texas–Austin, 21 Poverty & Race 3 (2012)
Implicit Bias in the Courtroom, 59 U.C.L.A. Law Review 1184 (co-authored with Jerry Kang et al.)(2012)
Implicit Bias Insights as Preconditions to Structural Change, 20 Poverty & Race 3 co-authored with john a. powell (2011)
Protecting Status: The Mortgage Crisis, Eminent Domain, and the Ethic of Homeownership, 78 Fordham Law Review (co-authored with David V. Simunovich) (2009)
Race Nuisance: The Politics of Law in the Jim Crow Era, 105 Michigan Law Review 505 (2006)
Viewing the Cathedral from Behind the Color Line: Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Environmental Racism, 54 Emory Law Review 1808 (2004)
Environmental Justice and the Integration Ideal, 59 New York Law Review 1109 (2004)
Expressivism, Empathy, and the Equal Protection Clause, 36 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 247 (2003)
The Question of Risk: Incorporating Community Perceptions into Environmental Risk Assessments, 21 Fordham Urban Law Journal 547 co-authored with James S. Freeman (1994)
Jobs, Trees, and Autonomy: The Convergence of the Environmental Justice Movement and Community Economic Development, 5 Maryland Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 25 (co-authored with James S. Freeman)(1993-94)
Remedying Environmental Racism, 90 Michigan Law Review 394 (1991) included in the Environmental Justice Resource Center, Environmental Justice: An Annotated Bibliography (1980 – 1998)
Books, Chapters, and Reports
Book chapter, Promoting Fairness? Examining the Efficacy of Implicit Bias Training in the Criminal Justice System in Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at Racial Prejudice in the U.S. Criminal Justice System (Lexington Books 2020).
What Are We Up Against? An Intersectional Examination of Stereotypes Associated with Gender Sponsored by Story at Scale (2020).
Science of Equality In Education: The Impact of Implicit Bias, Racial Anxiety, and Stereotype Threat on Student Outcomes (2018).
The “Good Hair” Study: Explicit and Implicit Attitudes Toward Black Women’s Hair (2017).
Science of equality Volume 2: The Effects of Gender Roles, Implicit Bias, and Stereotype Threat on the Lives of Women and Girls Perception Institute, co-authored with Linda R. Tropp, Phillip Atiba Goff, john a. powell, and Jessica MacFarlane (2016).
Book chapter, The Moral Ecology of Policing: A Mind Science Approach to Race and Policing in the United States, The Routledge Handbook of Criminal Justice Ethics ed. Jonathan Jacobs & Jonathan Jackson (co-authored with Phillip Atiba Goff)(2016).
#PopJustice: Vol. 3: Pop Culture, Perceptions, and Social Change, 2016 (co-authored with Jessica MacFarlane and Brian Sheppard) UnBound Philanthropy (2016)
Final Evaluation of Halal in the Family Measuring Effects on Implicit and Explicit Anti-Muslim Bias, Perception Institute (co-authored with Emily Balcetis & Benjamin Gonzales) (2015)
Science of equality Volume 1: Implicit Bias, Racial Anxiety, and Stereotype Threat in Education and Health Care Perception Institute, (co-authored with Linda R. Tropp, Phillip Atiba Goff, john a. powell)(2014)
Telling Our Own Story: The Role of Narrative in Racial Healing Kellogg Foundation, (co-authored with Brianna Goodale)(2013)
Book chapter, Tale of Two Neighborhoods: Implicit Bias in Environmental Decision-making in Implicit Bias Across the Law Oxford University Press, Justin Levinson and Robert Smith, ed. (2012)
Transforming Perception: Black Men and Boys March, sponsored by the Open Society Foundation (2012)
Retooling HUD for a Catalytic Federal Government: A Report to Shaun Donovan Penn Institute for Urban Research, co-edited with Paul Brophy (2009)
Book chapter, Just Compensation in an Ownership Society ed. Robin Paul Malloy Ashgate Press, co-authored with David Simunovich (2007)
Awakening from the Dream: Civil Rights Under Siege and the New Struggle for Equal Justice Carolina Academic Press, (co-edited with Denise Morgan and Joy Moses)(2005)
Book chapter: Permitted to Pollute: The Rollback of Environmental Justice co-authored with Olga Pomar, Awakening from the Dream: Civil Rights Under Siege and the New Struggle for Equal Justice (2005)
Book Reviews
Stuart Banner, How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier, Harvard University Press in 27 Law and History Review 462-464 2009
Michael J. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality, Cambridge University Press in 25 Law and History Review 2007
Amicus Briefs
Brief of Amicus Curiae Sociologists, Social Psychologists, and Legal Scholars in Support of Respondents, Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. the Inclusive Societies Project, 2015 No. 13-1371 co-authored with Jerry Kang and John V. Wintermute
Brief of Amicus Curiae NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. in Support of Respondents, Wood v. Moss, 2014 134 S. Ct. 2056, 2014 WL 645422 co-authored with Jon Romberg
Brief of Amicus Curiae of Experimental Psychologists. et al. in Support of Respondents, Fisher v. University of Texas, August 13, 2012 No. 01-1015 co-authored with Stuart Banner & Jerry Kang
Brief of Amici Curiae Law Professors in Support of Plaintiffs-Appellees, Floyd v. City of New York, New York City Stop & Frisk case, 717 F.3d 72, 2014 WL 4960396 co-authored with Jon Romberg
Brief of Amici Curiae in Support of Plaintiffs-Appellees, Al Shimari v. CACI Premier Technology, Inc., 758 F.3d 516, 2014 WL 2922840 co-authored with Jon Romberg
Brief of Amici Curiae National Parent Teacher Association in Support of Respondents, in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District et al, nos. 05-908 and 05-915United States Supreme Court co-authored with Michelle Adams