NAOMI JEWEL MEZEY
600 New Jersey Ave. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 662-9854
mezeyn@law.georgetown.edu
3821 Cathedral Ave. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20016
(202) 536-4132
EMPLOYMENT
Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C.
October 1997-present
Professor of Law. Teaching fields include Civil Procedure, Legislation, Nationalism &
Cultural Identity, Legal Process, Jurisprudence and Law & Culture.
The Honorable Marilyn Hall Patel, San Francisco, CA
1995-1997
Law Clerk. United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, Los Angeles, CA
Summer 1994
Summer Associate. Assisted with discovery in Title VI litigation. Prepared legal
memoranda in a case challenging the use of police dogs and other civil rights cases.
Federal Public Defender, San Francisco, CA
Summer 1994
Summer Associate. Drafted motions and jury instructions. Prepared memoranda on
counterfeiting, forfeiture, and other criminal issues.
American Civil Liberties Union, New York, New York
Summer 1993
Summer Law Clerk. Reproductive Rights Project. Produced legal memoranda and
drafted affidavits for challenges to restrictive state abortion regulations.
Senator Alan Cranston, Washington, D.C.
1988-1990
Legislative Aide for Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture. Wrote floor
statements, testimony, briefing memos. Monitored the Senate floor and advised the
Senator on pending votes. Made co-sponsorship recommendations. Met with
constituents and lobbyists. Drafted position statements on host of issues, including offshore drilling, forest management, national parks, wildlife protection, organic labeling.
New York Times, Madrid Bureau, Spain
1987-1988
News Aide. Conducted research and interviews. Translated articles from the Spanish
press.
ADMITTED TO PRACTICE
California
District of Columbia
EDUCATION & ACADEMIC HONORS
Stanford Law School, Stanford, CA
Graduated with Distinction
Articles Editor, Stanford Law Review
Recipient of Public Interest Tuition Fellowship
J.D. 1995
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Awarded Masters Degree in American Studies with Distinction
M.A. 1992
Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
B.A. 1987
Graduated with High Honors from the College of Letters
Juan Roura-Parella Book Prize (awarded for academic achievement)
Phi Beta Kappa
Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, Madrid, Spain
1987-1988
Awarded for research and work on a fictional play set against the Spanish Civil War
PUBLICATIONS
Legal Radicals in Madonna=s Closet: The Influence of Identity Politics, Popular Culture,
and a New Generation on Critical Legal Studies, 46 STAN. L. REV. 1835 (1994)
Dismantling the Wall: Bisexuality and the Possibilities of Sexual Identity Classification
Based on Acts, 10 BERKELEY WOMEN=S L.J. 98 (1995)
The Distribution of Wealth, Sovereignty, and Culture Through Indian Gaming, 48 STAN.
L. REV. 711 (1996)
Excerpted or reprinted in:
WHEN SORRY ISN’T ENOUGH: THE CONTROVERSY OVER APOLOGIES AND
REPARATIONS FOR HUMAN INJUSTICE (Roy L Brooks ed. 1999)
SOVEREIGNTY, COLONIALISM, AND THE FUTURE OF THE INDIGENOUS NATIONS
(Robert Odawi Porter ed. 2004)
Out of the Ordinary: Law, Power, Culture and the Commonplace, 26 LAW & SOC.
INQUIRY 145 (2001)
Law as Culture, 13 YALE J. OF LAW & HUMAN. 35 (2001)
Excerpted or reprinted in:
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CULTURAL ANALYSIS, CULTURAL STUDIES, AND THE LAW: MOVING BEYOND
LEGAL REALISM (Austin Sarat & Jonathan Simon eds. 2003)
RACE, GENDER, AND SPORTS (Michael J. Cozzillio & Robert L. Hayman, Jr. eds.
2004)
Erasure and Recognition: The Census, Race and the National Imagination, 97
NORTHWESTERN U. L. REV. 1701 (2003)
Selected for the 2002 Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum
Screening the Law: Ideology and Law in American Popular Culture (with Mark C.
Niles), 28 COLUM. J.L. & ARTS 91 (2005)
Reprinted in Entertainment, Publishing, and the Arts 2006-2007 (West 2006)
Latinos and the U.S. Census, in ENCYCLOPEDIA LATINA: HISTORY, CULTURE, SOCIETY
(Grolier Press 2006)
Law’s Visual Afterlife (forthcoming in Law & Film: Essays on the State of the Field)
The Paradox of Cultural Property (forthcoming in Columbia L. Rev. 2007)
Law Making: Statutory and Regulatory Interpretation (casebook in progress)
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Co-Founder, Columbia, Georgetown, UCLA & USC Interdisciplinary Law & Humanities
Junior Scholars Workshop. The Workshop is a juried paper competition for original
work by untenured faculty or advanced graduate students working in law and humanities.
Treasurer, Association for the Study of Law, Culture & the Humanities 2004-2007
Chair, Law & Anthropology Section, AALS 2007
Advisory Board, International Journal of Law in Context
SELECTED PAPERS & CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION
Panel Chair & Commentator, Rethinking What Law Has to Say to Literature and What
Literature Has to Say to Law, Working Group on Law, Culture and the Humanities
(Washington D.C., March 1998)
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Invited Roundtable Participant, Legal Studies as Cultural Studies, Law & Society
Association Annual Meeting (Aspen, CO, June 1998)
Paper presentation, Imagining the Nation: Racial Identity and the U.S. Census, Working
Group on Law, Culture and the Humanities (Washington, D.C., March 2000)
Invited paper presentation, What We Talk About When We Talk About Culture, Cultural
Studies and the Law Symposium (New Haven, CT, April 2000)
Paper Presentation, What We Talk About When We Talk About Culture, Law & Society
Association Annual Meeting (Miami Beach, FL, May 2000)
Invited paper presentation, The Census as National Imagination: The Chinese Category
in Historical Perspective, Levy Institute Conference on Multiraciality: How Will the
New Census Data Be Used? (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, September 2000)
Paper presentation, The Politics of Enumeration, Retribution and Recognition: The
Census, Race and the National Imagination, Association for the Study of Law, Culture
and the Humanities (Austin, TX, March 2001)
Invited paper presentation, The Politics of Enumeration, Retribution and Recognition:
The Census, Race and the National Imagination, University of Minnesota Law School
Faculty Workshop (October 2001)
Invited paper presentation, Erasure and Recognition: The Census, Race and the National
Imagination, 2002 Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum (New Haven, CT, June 2002)
Paper presentation, A Fervent and a Frightened Prayer: The Relationship Between Law
and Justice in American Popular Culture, Association for the Study of Law, Culture and
the Humanities (New York, NY, March 2003)
Invited paper presentation, Screening the Law: Ideology and Law in American Popular
Culture, University of Virginia Law School Faculty Workshop (Nov. 1, 2004)
Panel Commentator, Citizens and Subjects, Association for the Study of Law, Culture
and the Humanities (Austin, TX, March 2005)
Panel Commentator, Dilemmas of Performing Legal Subjectivity, Association for the
Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities (Austin, TX, March 2005)
Panel Commentator, Genocide and Law, Association for the Study of Law, Culture and
the Humanities (Austin, TX, March 2005)
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Paper presentation, Cultural property/Cultural Fusion, Association for the Study of Law,
Culture and the Humanities (Syracuse, NY, March 2006)
Roundtable participant, Mercy on Trial, Association for the Study of Law, Culture and
the Humanities (Syracuse, NY, March 2006)
Invited Panelist, The Ethical Underpinnings and Racial Politics of Immigration Reform,
University of Virginia Conference on Public Service & the Law (Feb. 17, 2007)
Invited paper presentation, The Paradox of Cultural Property, University of Colorado
Faculty Workshop (March 16, 2007)
Invited paper presentation, The Paradox of Cultural Property, University of Southern
California Law, History & Culture Workshop (March 19, 2007)
COMMUNITY SERVICE
ABA Women Trailblazers in the Law Oral History Project (2005-present)
Guardian Ad Litem for four children in the custody of Washington D.C.’s Children and
Family Services Agency (April 2003-Nov. 2006)
Board of Directors, Midpeninsula Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (19941995)
Founder & Chair, Stanford Law School’s First Annual Public Interest Auction (1993)
Volunteer, Barbara Boxer for U.S. Senate (1992)
Volunteer, Project Northstar, providing tutoring to homeless children in Washington D.C.
(1988-1990)
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