Prof. Karla McKanders - Deconstructing Race in Immigration Law’s Origin Stories (DATE TBD)

(DATE is not yet finalized)

Karla McKanders joined the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund as its Director in June 2023, bringing with her extensive experience in teaching Critical Race Theory and Immigration Law at Vanderbilt University Law School. Notably, she was the Associate Director of Vanderbilt’s Clinical Program where she also served as the Founding Director of the Immigration Practice Clinic, supervising students in providing vital representation to asylum seekers and unaccompanied minor children in humanitarian immigration cases. Her work encompassed appearances before the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and federal courts of appeals.

Throughout her scholarship, McKanders has focused on the normative theme of how the law reifies race by legislating cultural norms that perpetuate racial divisions and hierarchies in the United States.

(DATE is not yet finalized)