Professor Michèle Alexandre, the incoming Dean of Stetson College of Law and an established and engaged civil rights scholar, will be the featured speaker presenting on the topic “Embracing the Struggle: Seizing the Urgency of the Moment” at Eastern Kentucky University on Tuesday, April 9. The presentation begins at 7 p.m. in O'Donnell Hall of the Whitlock Building. The event is free and open to the public.
Alexandre is currently an Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Intellectual Life, Professor of Law, and, Leonard B. Melvin, Jr. Lecturer at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Her teaching and scholarly areas include gender, constitutional law, international law, civil rights law, disability law, critical race theory and human rights.
“Everyone at EKU should feel they have a voice here. We are honored to welcome such a champion for civil rights,” said EKU President Dr. Michael Benson. “Professor Alexandre’s esteemed career offers astute insight and perspective on creating an inclusive community. Her visit is a wonderful opportunity for our campus to embrace the range of opportunities our students, faculty and staff have to learn from each other.”
Alexandre is the author of “The New Frontiers of Civil Rights Litigation” (Carolina Academic Press, January 2019) and of “Sexploitation: Sexual Profiling and the Illusion of Gender” (Routledge, 2014). Additionally, she has published numerous law review articles and book chapters, which have appeared in the Washington and Lee Law Review, the Indiana Law Review, the Emory Law Journal and the Boston College Environmental Law Review, among others.
She was named one of Ebony Magazine’s Top 100 influential African Americans of 2013 and one of the 50 “Most Influential Minority Law Professors 50 Years of Age or Younger” by Lawyers of Color Magazine. She has received Fulbright and Watson Fellowships. Alexandre received her law school’s Ben A. Hardy Faculty Excellence Award for outstanding teaching, scholarship and service in 2016. In 2017, she was selected as an SEC-U Academic Leadership Development Program Fellow for 2017-18.
Alexandre is Colgate University’s first black valedictorian (1996). She earned her Juris Doctor degree (J.D.) from Harvard Law School. After law school, she clerked for U.S. District Court Judge John P. Fullam in Philadelphia. She subsequently practiced law in New York and Alabama, where she worked on the pivotal “Black Farmers Lawsuit.”