Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology, Elected to American Philosophical Society

Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss Professor of Law & Sociology, Raymond Pace & Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, and Professor of Africana Studies, has been elected to the American Philosophical Society (APS). Founded in 1743 for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge,” the APS is the oldest learned society in the United States.
 
An acclaimed scholar of race, gender, and the law, Roberts’ research catalogues the consequences of racial inequities for women, children, families, and communities—and counters scientific tenets about racial identity. Her pathbreaking work in law and public policy focuses on urgent social justice issues in policing, family regulation, science, medicine, and bioethics.
 
She is also the founding director of the groundbreaking Program on Race, Science, and Society, and has written several books, including Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World (2022), Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century (2011); Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (2002), and Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (1997). She is the author of more than 100 scholarly articles and book chapters, as well as a co-editor of six books on such topics as constitutional law and women and the law.
 
The APS promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and community outreach. It has played a role in American cultural and intellectual life for more than 250 years.