Richard Thompson Ford

An expert on civil rights and antidiscrimination law, Richard Thompson Ford has distinguished himself as an insightful voice and compelling writer on questions of racism and multiculturalism. His scholarship combines social criticism and legal analysis. He writes for both popular readers and for academic and legal specialists. His work focuses on the social and legal conflicts surrounding claims of discrimination, the causes and effects of racial segregation, and the use of territorial boundaries as instruments of social regulation.

Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1994, Professor Ford was a Reginald F. Lewis Fellow at Harvard Law School, a litigation associate with Morrison & Foerster, and a housing policy consultant for the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a Commissioner of the San Francisco Housing Authority in 1997 and 1998. He has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, Vox, the New York Daily News, Slate and was a columnist for The American Interest. His latest book is Dress Codes: how the laws of fashion made history. He is also the author of Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality, The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse, Racial Card: A Critique et Universal Rights Down to Earth.

He is a member of the American Law Institute, a founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance and a board member of the Author’s Guild Foundation.