Dorothy Roberts Wins Distinguished Lecture Award from Columbia

Dorothy Roberts has won Columbia University’s Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth B. Clark Distinguished Lecture Award. The annual award recognizes the extraordinary contributions of a senior scholar in the area of race and justice.

Roberts is the George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology, the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, and a professor of Africana studies. She is also the 14th Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) Professor and the founding director of Penn's Program on Race, Science, and Society. Roberts is the author of more than 80 scholarly articles and book chapters, as well as a co-editor of books on topics including constitutional law, First Amendment law, and women and the law.

The Distinguished Lecture Award honors psychologists and Columbia graduates Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth B. Clark. Findings from their pioneering experiments using dolls to study children's attitudes about race were instrumental in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that determined de jure racial segregation in public education was unconstitutional. In April, Roberts delivered a public lecture, “Scientific Delusions about Race," in recognition of the award.