Sahar Aziz
Distinguished Professor of Law, and Chancellor's Social Justice Scholar
Sahar Aziz's scholarship examines the intersection of national security, race, religion, and civil rights with a focus on the adverse impact of national security laws and policies on racial, religious, and ethnic minorities. She is the author of "The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom" and co-editor of "Global Islamophobia and the Rise of Populism." She also serves as the founding director of the Center for Security, Race and Rights. Professor Aziz is a recipient of the Derrick A. Bell Award from the Association of American Law Schools and was named a Middle Eastern and North African American National Security and Foreign Policy Next Generation Leader by New America in 2020 and a Soros Equality Fellow in 2021.
Biography
Sahar Aziz is Distinguished Professor of Law, Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar, and Middle East and Legal Studies Scholar at Rutgers University Law School. Professor Aziz’s scholarship adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examine intersections of national security, race, and civil rights with a focus on the adverse impact of national security laws and policies on racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in the U.S. Her research also investigates the relationship between authoritarianism, terrorism, and rule of law in the Middle East. She is the founding director of the interdisciplinary Rutgers Center for Security, Race, and Rights (csrr.rutgers.edu) and a faculty affiliate of the African American Studies Department at Rutgers University-Newark Professor Aziz serves on the Rutgers-Newark Chancellor's Commission on Diversity and Transformation as well as the editorial board of the Arab Law Quarterly and the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Professor Aziz teaches courses on national security, critical race theory, Islamophobia, evidence, torts, and Middle East law.
Professor Aziz is the recipient of numerous awards including a Soros Equality Fellowship (2021), A New America Middle Eastern and North African American National Security and Foreign Policy Next Generation Leader (2020), the Research Making an Impact Award by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (2017), the Derrick Bell Award from the American Association of Law Schools Minority Section (2015), and an Emerging Scholar by Diverse Issues in Higher Education (2015). She serves on the board of directors of ReThink Media, the Project on Democracy in the Middle East (POMED), and Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN).
Professor Aziz's ground breaking book The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom examines how religious bigotry racializes immigrant Muslims through a historical and comparative approach. She has published over thirty academic articles and book chapters. Her articles are published in the Harvard National Security Journal, Washington and Lee Law Review, Nebraska Law Review, George Washington International Law Review, Penn State Law Review, and the Texas Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Journal.
Professor Aziz’s commentary has appeared in the New York Times, CNN.com, Carnegie Endowment’s Sada Journal, Middle East Institute, Foxnews.com, World Politics Review, Houston Chronicle, Austin Statesmen, The Guardian, and Christian Science Monitor. She is a frequent public speaker and has appeared on CNN, BBC World, PBS, CSPAN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Al Jazeera English. She is an editor of the Race and the Law Profs blog. She previously served on the board of the ACLU of Texas and as a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution – Doha.
Prior to joining legal academia, Professor Aziz served as a Senior Policy Advisor for the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security where she worked on law and policy at the intersection of national security and civil liberties. Professor Aziz began her legal career as a litigation associate for WilmerHale after which she was an associate at Cohen Milstein Sellers and Toll PLLP in Washington, D.C. where she litigated Title VII class actions on behalf of plaintiffs.
Professor Aziz earned a J.D. and M.A. in Middle East Studies from the University of Texas where she was as an associate editor of the Texas Law Review. Professor Aziz clerked for the Honorable Andre M. Davis on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
In 2021, Professor Aziz was named a Soros Equality Fellow for her work in race, policing and national security.
Publications
Books
The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom (University of California Press 2021)
Global Islamophobia in an Era of Populism (eds. Sahar Aziz and John L. Esposito) (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2024)
Law Review Articles
Race, Entrapment and Manufacturinng "Homegrown Terrorism," 111 GEORGETOWN L. J. 381 (2023)
State Sponsored Radicalization, 27 MICH. J. RACE & L. 125 (2021) (solicited)
Fear of a Black and Brown Internet: Policing Online Activism, 100 B.U. L. REV. 1153 (2020) (co-author Khaled Beydoun) (2020) (solicited)
Authoritarianization of U.S. Counterterrorism, 75 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 1573 (2018)
A Muslim Registry: The Precursor to Internment?, 2018 B.Y.U. L. Rev. 101 (2018) (solicited)
Military Electoral Authoritarianism in Egypt, 16 ELECTION L. J. 280 (2017) (solicited) (peer reviewed)
Losing the “War of Ideas:” A Critique of Countering Violent Extremism Programs, 52 TEX. INT’L L. J. 255 (2017) (solicited)
Rethinking Counterterrorism in the Age of ISIS: Lessons from Sinai, 95 NEB. L. REV. 307 (2016)
Independence without Accountability: The Judicial Paradox of Egypt’s Failed Transition to Democracy, 120 PENN ST. L. REV. 1 (2016)
Coercing Assimilation: The Case of Muslim Women of Color, 24 TRANSNATION L. & CONTEMP. PROBLEMS 1 (Univ. of Iowa) (Fall 2015) (solicited)
The Blinding Color of Race: Elections and Democracy in a Post-Shelby Era, 17 BERKELEY J. AFR.-AM. L. & POL'Y 182 (2015)
Coercive Assimilationism: The Perils of Muslim Women's Identity Performance in the Workplace, 20 MICH. J. RACE & L. 1 (2014)
Bringing Down an Uprising: Egypt’s Stillborn Revolution, 30 CONN. J. INT'L L. 1 (2014)
Policing Terrorists in the Community, 5 HARV. NAT'L SEC. J. 147 (2014)
Revolution without Reform? A Critique of Egypt’s Election Laws, 15 GEO. WASH. INT’L L. REV. 101 (2012)
From the Oppressed to the Terrorist: Muslim American Women in the Crosshairs of Intersectionality, 9 HASTINGS RACE & POV. L. J. 191 (2012)
Caught in a Preventive Dragnet: Selective Counterterrorism in a Post 9-11 America, 47 GONZ. L. REV. 1 (2012)
Egypt’s Protracted Revolution, 19 NO. 3 HUM. RTS. BRIEF 1 (2012) (solicited)
Sticks and Stones, the Words that Hurt: Entrenched Stereotypes 8 Years After 9/11, 13 N.Y. CITY L. REV. 33 (2009)
The Laws on Providing Material Support to Terrorist Organizations: The Erosion of Constitutional Rights or a Legitimate Tool for Combating Terrorism?, 9 TEX. J. C.L. & C.R. 45 (2003)
Linking Intellectual Property Rights with Research and Development, Technology Transfer, and Foreign Investment: A Case Study of Egypt’s Pharmaceutical Industry, 10 ILSA J. INT’L & COMP. L. 1 (2003)
Book Chapters
Legally White, Socially Brown: Racialization of Middle Eastern and North African Americans, ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK ON ISLAM AND RACE (ed. Zain Abdullah) (Routledge Press, forthcoming 2024) (solicited)
Different Name, Same Aim: Targeting Muslims in “Soft Counterterrorism,” in Politiques de Déradicalisation (eds. Juliette Galonnier, Stéphane Lacroix, and Nadia Marzouki) (Les Presses de la Fondation Nationale de Sciences politiques 2022) (peer reviewed, solicited)
“Whosoever Sees an Evil”: Muslim Americans’ Human Rights Advocacy, OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYLOPEDIA OF RELIGION (forthcoming 2021) (solicited)
Orientalism, Empire, and The Racial Muslim, in OVERCOMING ORIENTALISM (ed. Tamara Sonn) (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2020) (solicited)
Coercive Assimilationism and Muslim Women’s Identity Performance in the Workplace, in ISLAMOPHOBIA AND THE LAW (eds. Khaled Beydoun & Cyra Choudry) (Cambridge 2020) (solicited)
Commentary on Webb v. City of Philadelphia, in FEMINIST JUDGMENTS: EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION OPINIONS REWRITTEN (eds. Ann McGinley & Nicole Porter) (Cambridge 2020) (solicited)
The Alpha Female and the Sinister Seven, in PRESUMED INCOMPETENT II: THE INTERSECTIONS OF RACE AND CLASS FOR WOMEN IN ACADEMIA (eds. Carmen Gonzalez & Gabriella Gutierrez y Muhs) (NYU Press 2020) (solicited)
(De)liberalization of Judicial Independence in Post-January 25th Egypt, in EGYPT AND THE CONTRADICTIONS OF LIBERALISM: ILLIBERALISM, INTELLIGENTSIA AND THE FUTURE OF EGYPTIAN DEMOCRACY (eds. Dalia Fahmy & Daanish Faruqi, Oneworld 2017) (solicited)
Egypt’s Revolution Turned Uprising, in EGYPT BEYOND TAHRIR (ed. Bessma Momain & Eid Mohamed, Indiana University Press 2016) (solicited)
Theater or Transitional Justice: Reforming the Judiciary in Egypt, in TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE IN THE MIDDLE EAST (ed. Chandra Sriram) (Oxford University Press 2016) (solicited)
Terror(izing) the Muslim “Veil,” in THE RULE OF LAW AND THE RULE OF GOD, edited by Simeon Ilesanmi (Palsgraf Press 2014) (solicited)