Sharon Elizabeth Rush
Emeritus Professor
Expertise
Abortion and Reproductive Rights • Affirmative Action • Bill of Rights • Civil Rights • Constitutional Law • Eleventh Amendment • Federal Courts • Federalism • Fourteenth Amendment • Race & Race Relations • Section 1983 Suits • Sexual Harassment • States Rights • Supreme Court • Tenth Amendment • Title IX •
About
Sharon E. Rush teaches constitutional law and federal courts. She practiced law at the firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft before joining the faculty at DePaul University in Chicago where she taught for two years prior to joining the Florida faculty. Prof. Rush is an expert on separation of powers, federalism, children’s rights, equal protection, due process, and race relations. She co-founded the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations, one of a few law school centers that focuses on race. She is the author of Loving Across the Color Line: A White Adoptive Mother Learns About Race (2000), which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award, and Huck Finn’s “Hidden” Lessons: Teaching and Learning Across the Color Line (2006). Her articles have been published in law reviews and journals at many of the top law schools and she also has contributed numerous chapters to books published by acclaimed academic presses such as Vanderbilt University, New York University, Cornell University, North Carolina Press, and Oxford University.
Prof. Rush achieved the honor of being cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ankenbrandt v. Richards, Inc. 504 U.S. 689 (1992), a case that raised questions about the scope of the domestic relations exception to federal jurisdiction. Professor Rush’s teaching influence extends around the world to South Africa, Poland, Germany, Mexico, and France and she has been a visiting professor at several law schools, including Cornell University, her alma mater. She also has received several Outstanding Teaching Awards. Prof. Rush’s current research projects focus on the relationship between group political power and an individual’s right to equal protection.
Education
J.D., Cornell University (cum laude)
B.A., Cornell University
Teaching and Scholarship
Civil Procedure, Comparative Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, Fourteenth Amendment, Children’s Rights.
Publications
Books
- Political Power and Equal Protection: The Role of the Court (research stage)
- Huck Finn’s Hidden Lessons: Teaching and Learning Across the Color Line (Roman & Littlefield, 2006)
- Loving Across the Color Line; A White Adoptive Mother Learns about Race (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000) (Nominated for NAACP Image Award)
- Feminist Jurisprudence, Women and the Law: Research Essays and Bibliography (Rothman Press, 1998) (eds. with B. Taylor & R. Munro)
Book Chapters
- ”Miscegenation” in Encyclopedia of Family Studies (Constance Shehan, ed.) (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015)
- “Doing Anti-racism: Toward an Egalitarian American Society,” in Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Social Class: Dimensions of Inequality (S.J. Ferguson, ed.) (Sage Pub., 2015) (with Joe Feagin and Jacqueline Johnson)(reprinted from 29(1) Contemporary Sociology 95 (2000)) (Note: also published in the 2012 edition)
- ”The Town/Gown Relationship: Duke, Durham, and Dignity,” in Race to Injustice (Michael Seigel, ed., North Carolina Press, 2009) pp. 55-77
- ”Toto, I Have A Feeling We Are Still in Kansas,” in Law Touched Our Hearts (M. Robinson and R. Bonnie, ed., Vanderbilt University Press, 2009) pp. 43-49
Articles
- “Equal Protection and Federalism: A Strange Marriage?” (research stage)
- “Federalism, Diversity, Equality, and Article III Judges: Geography, Identity and Bias,” 79 Mo. L. Rev. 119 (2014) [SSRN]
- “Talking About Race and Equality,” 22 U. Fla. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 417 (2011) [SSRN]
- “Protecting the Dignity and Equality of Children: The Importance of Integrated Schools,” 20 Temp. Pol. & Civ. Rts. L. Rev. 71-119 (2010) [SSRN]
- “Whither Sexual Orientation Analysis: The Proper Methodology When Due Process and Equal Protection Intersect,” 16 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 685-745 (2008) [SSRN]
- “Lessons From and For ‘Disabled’ Students, 8 U. Iowa J. Gender & Race 73-97 (2004) (symposium) [SSRN]
- “Emotional Segregation: Huckleberry Finn in the Modern Classroom,” 36 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 305 (2003) [SSRN]
- “The Anti-canonical Lesson of Huckleberry Finn,” Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol’y (2002) [SSRN]
- “Foreword: Culture, Nationhood, and the Human Rights Ideal,” 33 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 233 (with Berta Hernandez-Truyol, 2000) [SSRN]
- “Doing Anti-Racism: Making an Egalitarian Future,” 29 Contemporary Sociology 95 (with Joe R. Feagin / Jacqueline Johnson, 2000)
- “Sharing Space: Why Racial Goodwill Isn’t Enough,” 32 Conn. L. Rev. 1 (1999) [SSRN]
- “Diversity: The Red Herring of Equal Protection Analysis,” Am. U. J. Gender & L. (1998) [SSRN]
- “The Education of Immigrant Children: The Competing Goals of State Sovereignty and Racial Equality,” 1 Rutgers Race & L. Rev. 155 (1998)