Martha Minow, Dean of Harvard Law School

In her welcoming comments at the Harvard Law School's website, Minow remarks: ''Harvard Law School is a place for people who love ideas because ideas make a difference in the world; who want to think about the law's interaction with public policy, business, information and biomedical technologies, and human needs and perceptions; who are fascinated by the power of institutions and rules while mindful of the unintended consequences of policy reforms; and who pursue the legal profession's service to society.''

Martha Minow has taught a broad range of courses at Harvard Law School since 1981, including civil procedure, constitutional law, family law, international criminal justice, jurisprudence, nonprofit organizations, and the public law workshop. Known as an expert in human rights and an advocate for members of racial and religious minorities and for women, children, as well as for persons with disabilities, she also writes and instructs about privatization, military justice, and ethnic and religious conflict.


In addition to the many articles Minow has had published in law, history, and philosophy journals, she is the author of over a dozen books, including In Brown's Wake: Legacies of America's Educational Landmark, Government by Contract, and Just Schools: Pursuing Equality in Societies of Difference.

Minow has been involved in many humanitarian efforts. She served on the Independent International Commission Kosovo and assisted in launching Imagine Co-existence, a program of the U.N .High Commissioner for Refugees. Its mission is to promote peaceful development in post-conflict societies.

Her five-year partnership with the federal Department of Education and the Center for Applied Special Technology worked to increase accessibility to the curriculum for students with disabilities. This effort resulted in both legislative initiatives and a voluntary national standard which opened access to curricular materials for individuals with disabilities.

She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Sacks-Freund Teaching Award, as selected by the Harvard Law School graduating class of 2005, and the Holocaust Center Award in 2006. She is also an Honorary Doctorate of Law, University of Toronto, 2006 and an Honorary Doctorate of Education, Wheelock College, 1996.

In August 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Dean Minow to the board of the Legal Services Corporation, a bi-partisan, government-sponsored organization that provides civil legal assistance to low-income Americans. The U.S. Senate confirmed her appointment and she currently serves as Vice-Chair. She also chairs the board of directors for the Revson Foundation. She sits on several other boards, including the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the Covenant Foundation, and Facing History and Ourselves.

Minow was a potential candidate to replace U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, upon his retirement. However, Elena Kagan, Minow's predecessor as dean of Harvard Law School, was chosen.

For three years, Minow was co-chair of the Law School's curricular reform, from 2003 to 2006. This led to vast innovation in the curriculum for first year students, and new programs of study for second- and third-year students.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, Minow received her Master's degree in education from Harvard, and she earned her Juris Doctorate from Yale.

She clerked for Judge David Bazelon of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court of the United States.