Prior to joining the College of Law 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.  During her time at the Center, Professor Williams was lead counsel and successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, which established that educational institutions have a duty to respond to and address complaints of student-to-student sexual harassment. 

Professor Williams also clerked for the Hon. David S. Nelson, U.S. District Judge for the District of Massachusetts.  After the clerkship, she practiced law at the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley & Austin and at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Professor Williams' current research examines the intersection of race, gender, and class in education law and policy.  She has presented papers at such venues as the Latina/o Critical Race Theory Conference and meetings of the Association of Law, Culture and the Humanities. Professor Williams also has served as a consultant for the Ford Foundation; in that capacity, she chaired the convening of a national conference at UC entitled Women Coming Together:  Claiming the Law for Social Change.  Professor Williams received the Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2004.

Download a copy of Professor Williams' Curriculum Vitae (pdf).

Publications

Reading, Writing, and Reparations: Systemic Reform of Public Schools as a Matter of Justice, 11 Mich. J. of Race & L. 419 (2006).

Private Choices, Public Consequences: Public Education Reform and Feminist Legal Theory, 12 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 563 (2006).

On Being a Mentor, 22 Harv. BlackLetter L.J. 127 (2006).

Reform or Retrenchment: Single Sex Education and the Construction of Race and Gender, 2004 Wis. L. Rev. 15.

Symposium Introduction: Women's Work is Never Done: Employment, Family, and Activism, 73 U. Cin. L. Rev. 361 (2004) (with Kristin Kalsem Brandser).

Sexual Harassment Ruling: Implications for Colleges, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 18, 1999.