Williams, Patricia J. 1951-
(Patricia Joyce Williams)

PERSONAL:

Born 1951, in Boston, MA; daughter of Isaiah (a technical editor) and Ruth (a teacher) Williams; children: Peter. Education: Wellesley College, B.A., 1972; Harvard University Law School, J.D., 1975.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Columbia University, Jerome Greene Hall, Rm. 505, 435 W. 116th St., New York, NY 10027.

CAREER:

Educator and writer. Office of the City Attorney, Los Angeles, CA, deputy city attorney, 1975-78; Western Center on Law and Poverty, Los Angeles, staff attorney, 1978-80; Golden Gate University, associate professor of law, 1980-84; City University of New York, Queens, associate professor, 1984-88; University of Wisconsin, Madison, professor of law, 1988-93; Columbia University, New York, NY, 1992—, began as professor of law, became James L. Dohr Professor of Law. Stanford University, Stanford, CA, visiting associate professor of law, 1988-89; Duke University, Durham, NC, visiting scholar-in-residence, 1990; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, visiting professor of women's studies, 1992. Member of board of directors for the National Organization for Women and the Legal Defense and Education; member of advisory council, Medgar Evers Center for Law and Social Justice of the City University of New York; member of board of trustees, Wellesley College. Fellow, School of Criticism and Theory, Dartmouth College, and Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Admitted to the State Bar of California, and the Bar of the Federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

MEMBER:

Center for Constitutional Rights (member of board of advisors), Society of American Law Teachers (member of board of governors), National Association for Public Interest Law, Bell Foundation.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Pioneer of Civil and Human Rights Award, National Conference of Black Lawyers, 1990; Bruce K. Gould Book Award, 1992, for The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor; Exceptional Merit Media Award, National Women's Political Caucus, 1993; Romnes Endowment for Excellence in Scholarship, University of Wisconsin; Mac-Arthur Foundation fellowship, 2000-05.

WRITINGS:

The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1991.

The Rooster's Egg: On the Persistence of Prejudice, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1995.

Seeing a Colour-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race, Virgo (London, England), 1997, published as Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race, Noonday (New York, NY), 1998.

Open House: Of Family, Friends, Food, Piano Lessons and the Search for a Room of My Own, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to books, including Malcolm X: In Our Own Image, edited by Joe Woods, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1992; Constitutional Law, edited by Mark V. Tushnet, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1992; Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality, edited by Toni Morrison, Pantheon (New York, NY), 1992; Reading Rodney King: Reading Urban Uprising, edited by Robert Gooding-Williams, Routledge (New York, NY), 1993; Feminism and Community, edited by Penny A. Weiss and Marilyn Friedman, Temple University Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1995; Constructing Masculinity, edited by Maurice Berger, Brian Wallis, and Simon Watson, Routledge (New York, NY), 1995; and Beacon Book of Essays by Contemporary American Women, edited by Wendy Martin, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1996.

Contributor to newspapers and periodicals, including the Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Harvard Law Review, University of Florida Law Review, University of Miami Law Review, Ms., Nation, Newsday, New Yorker, Village Voice, New York Times Book Review, and Washington Post.

SIDELIGHTS:

In her numerous articles in mainstream newspapers and periodicals, law professor Patricia J. Williams has been an outspoken critic of U.S. race relations. Her 1991 publication, The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor, and 1995's The Rooster's Egg: On the Persistence of Prejudice, both speak to the continuing tensions that exist between whites and African Americans. In addition to her books, Williams has contributed articles to numerous periodicals, including the Boston Globe, Harvard Law Review, Nation, Village Voice, and the Washington Post. "In her writings and teaching [she] always begins with the notion that experience counts. Society should not let case law—law established by judicial decisions—commercial interests like Hollywood, or powerful political figures manipulate reality and obscure the real motivations and fate of human beings," reported a contributor to Contemporary Black Biography.

Born in the highly segregated city of Boston in 1951, Williams was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, during the turbulent first years after public schools were forcibly integrated. Earning her B.A. from Wellesley College in 1972, she went on to Harvard University Law School, earning her J.D. in 1975. Williams's experiences at Harvard were shadowed by her sense of being an outsider: "My abiding recollection of being a student at Harvard Law School is the sense of being invisible," she writes in The Alchemy of Race and Rights. In this book, Williams discusses how race and class combine to affect the law, and thereby, personal rights. "[Personal] rights are islands of empowerment," she contends, explaining: "To be unrighted is to be disempowered, and the line between rights and no-rights is most often the line between dominators and oppressors." Individuals in positions of power are therefore assured of retaining their rights, Williams observes; for those disempowered by race, class, or gender, personal rights are not guaranteed.

Although the subtitle of The Alchemy of Race and Rights refers to the work as a diary, Williams did not write or intend the book to be promoted as such. In Contemporary Black Biography Williams described the book as "a story of my struggle to expand what in the law has been called ‘the reasonable man category’—a sense of the tension between myself, historically, and the unreasonable man, to enter into a political, legal, and social debate that challenges the normality that's made a cult of the standard of the reasonable man. To what extent can you expand it to include the ‘reasonable woman,’ ‘reasonable people?’ The experience of people who originally weren't considered citizens, human." In her book, Williams also provides commentary on a number of controversial and well-publicized cases."

Williams's type of writing was summarized by Jennifer Kohout for Feminist Writers: "Her writing style—which has been the subject of much controversy—can be considered autobiographical, or what is now called personal criticism. Williams works in a space wherein she combines both political and social theory, integrating her own personal experience to inform the argument that she makes. Her work is connected to her racial and gendered self; her work is specifically projected through her personal world-view. Because of this, many critics have complained that Williams goes too far; that she violates too many academic practices. Many feminists and critical theorists, meanwhile, have lauded her writing style, praising her for her honest, fresh approach."

The Rooster's Egg finds Williams examining newsworthy topics of the early 1990s. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's nomination hearings, 1992's Republican National Convention, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the wave of talk-show fever then sweeping the United States all come under discussion. In the midst of the decade's continued controversy surrounding the decision whether to continue or abandon welfare and affirmative action programs, Williams sees irony in the burgeoning popularity of media figures like Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern, "Radio Hoods" who, she contends, hide their racism and sexism behind the banner of the First Amendment. "What does it mean," she asks, "that a manic, penis-obsessed adolescent named Howard Stern is number one among radio listeners, that Rush Limbaugh's wittily smooth sadism has gone the way of prime-time television, and that these men's books tie for the number one slot on all the best seller lists?"

In both The Rooster's Egg and The Alchemy of Race and Rights, Williams's candid discussion of controversial issues has earned her a reputation as a radical. Some critics have also noted that her autobiographical writing style and her use of personal experience to support her contentions violate traditional academic practices. However, other critics have found much in her work to commend. "In luminous, supple prose, Williams helps us imagine the alternatives we need," noted Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in his Nation review of The Alchemy of Race and Rights. "And what some will condemn as her personalism—which I would describe, rather, as her refusal of impersonalism—proves an indispensable element of her own alchemy." When reviewing The Rooster's Egg, Progressive contributor Anne-Marie Cusac wrote: "Williams is essential reading for those of us who are baffled by the ever-mutating, eerily familiar presence of hatred in the United States. She approaches her subjects with respect and care, and asks the same of us."

Williams's publication Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race follows the same "free-ranging, vibrant style" familiar to readers of her previous books, according to Paula R. Dempsey's Library Journal review. Dempsey went on to remark that the book's author "speaks powerfully." A collection of five academic lectures-turned-essays, Williams's volume supports the idea of colorblindness but warns against forgetting colors. Seeing a Color-Blind Future is more than a presentation of removed knowledge, according to Booklist critic Vernon Ford, who wrote: "In a highly literary style, Williams shares personal insights" which help illustrate her assertions.

Covering another intimate realm, Williams's 2004 work, Open House: Of Family, Friends, Food, Piano Lessons and the Search for a Room of My Own, touches on a wide variety of topics, from being a single parent to reaching one's fifth decade, to dealing with individuals holding opposite viewpoints. The author also touches on her ancestors' slave heritage as well as her experiences as a female lawyer. Lauding the "smart, funny essays," People critic Michelle Green found Open House "a book you'll want to pass along to every bold woman you know." Library Journal contributor Terren Ilana Wein also offered high praise for Williams's "engaging, witty, and insightful voice," going on to call the memoir "eminently readable, challenging, and always interesting."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 11, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1996.

Feminist Writers, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

Williams, Patricia J., The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1991.

Williams, Patricia J., The Rooster's Egg: On the Persistence of Prejudice, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1995.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 1998, Vernon Ford, review of Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race, p. 1402.

Choice, February, 1996, review of The Alchemy of Race and Rights, p. 903.

Emerge, March, 1996, "Affirmative Action: Some of Black America's Best Minds Add to the Debate," p. 24.

Library Journal, April 1, 1998, Paula R. Dempsey, review of Seeing a Color-Blind Future, p. 114; January 1, 2005, Terren Ilana Wein, review of Open House: Of Family, Friends, Food, Piano Lessons and the Search for a Room of My Own, p. 114.

Ms., January-February, 1996, Susan McHenry, review of The Rooster's Egg, p. 90.

Nation, June 10, 1991, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., review of The Alchemy of Race and Rights, pp. 766-770.

New Republic, October 21, 1991, Jonathan Rieder, review of The Alchemy of Race and Rights, p. 39.

New Statesman & Society, August 9, 1991, Melissa Benn, review of The Alchemy of Race and Rights, p. 36.

New York Times Book Review, May 26, 1991, Wendy Kaminer, review of The Alchemy of Race and Rights, p. 10; October 29, 1995, Saul B. Shapiro, review of The Rooster's Egg, p. 43.

People, December 6, 2004, Michelle Greene, review of Open House, p. 55.

Progressive, January, 1997, Anne-Marie Cusac, review of The Rooster's Egg, p. 34.

Publishers Weekly, September 4, 1995, review of The Rooster's Egg, p. 59.