UCLA School of Law professor Cheryl Harris, one of the nation’s most eminent scholars and leaders in civil rights law and critical race studies, has received the Faculty Award for Career Commitment to Diversity, as part of the UCLA Academic Senate’s 2024 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Awards.

The awards are among UCLA’s highest honors for contributions to advancing a welcoming and positive environment at the university. Harris’s citation represents her excellence in the field and her widespread impact, including decades of thought leadership, mentorship of generations of students, and partnership with colleagues across academic disciplines.

Harris is the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Professor in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. She served as the law school’s inaugural vice dean for community, equality and justice until earlier this year. A formidable figure in the field of Critical Race Studies, her long list of accomplishments includes the seminal 1993 article “Whiteness as Property” in the Harvard Law Review. She joined the UCLA Law faculty in 1998 and was one of the founding members of the law school’s trailblazing Critical Race Studies program. On several occasions, she has served as the program’s faculty director.

She is also an inspiring teacher of tremendous distinction for generations of UCLA Law students. Previously, she won both the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award and the law school’s Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching. A rare standing-room-only crowd celebrated her receipt of the latter honor in 2018.

In a message to the UCLA Law community announcing this honor, Dean Michael Waterstone said, “The number of people whom Professor Harris has taught, mentored, collaborated with and otherwise worked with in so many ways – and who outright adore her for those partnerships – is truly legion. … Her wisdom and counsel touch so many aspects of this law school and our broader community in ways that boost us all. Quite simply, she makes UCLA – and, through the rest of us, the world far beyond – a better place.”