BELA AUGUST WALKER
ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
10 METACOM AVEN UE • BRISTOL, RI 02809
BWALKER@RWU.ED U
EXPERIENCE
Roger Williams University School of Law, Bristol, RI
Associate Professor of Law.
2011-present
Fordham Law School, New York, New York
Visiting Assistant Professor.
2009-2011
Columbia Law School, New York, New York
James F. Milligan Law Review Fellow.
2007-2009
Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Legal Associate.
2006-2007
Chambers of the Honorable Sidney R. Thomas, Billings, Montana
Law Clerk, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
2004-2005
Chambers of the Honorable Robert P. Patterson, New York, New York
Law Clerk, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
2003-2004
Davis Polk & Wardwell, New York, New York
Summer Associate.
Summer 2002
Legal Resources Center, Johannesburg, South Africa
Legal Intern.
Summer 2001
EDUCATION
Columbia Law School, Juris Doctor 2003
Honors: James Kent Scholar (2001-02, 2002-03)
Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar (2000-01)
Charles Bathgate Beck Prize: Awarded for Best Examination in Real Property
Activities: Essay & Review Editor, Columbia Law Review
Columbia Human Rights Intern
Bryn Mawr College, Bachelor of Arts in History, cum laude, 1999
Honors: Martha Barber Montgomery Award for Research in History
Activities: Editor-in-Chief, The College News
Thesis:
“Her Skin Was White”: Issues of Racial Identity and Consciousness in the Court
Case of Susie Guillory Phipps
PUBLICATIONS
Locating the Criminal: Civil Sanctions, Sexual Abuse & the American Family, SW. L. REV. (forthcoming 2014)
(solicited)
Looking at civil sanctions on sex offenders, this article argues that while statutes focus on the
red herring of stranger offenders without generating the systemic change necessary to stop
sexual abuse.
Symposium Issue: Reexamining Privilege Revealed Twenty Years Later: Privilege as Property, 42 WASH. U.
J.L. & POL’Y 47 (2013) (solicited)
This essay revisits Stephanie M. Wildman’s Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines
America alongside Cheryl Harris’s Whiteness as Property to explore the continued impact of
discrimination and discriminatory privilege in the legal world.
Book Review: Making Room in the Property Canon, 90 U. TEX. L. REV. 423 (2011) (solicited)
This review evaluates Integrating Spaces: Property Law and Race by Alfred L. Brophy, Alberto
Lopez, and Kali N. Murray.
Essay: Deciphering Risk: Sex Offender Statutes & Moral Panic in a Risk Society, 40 U. BALT. L. REV. 183
(2010)
In the context of the burgeoning of civil sexual offender statutes, this article examines how
moral panic theory interacts with a risk society analysis.
Fractured Bonds: Policing Whiteness & Womanhood through Race-Based Marriage Annulments, 58 DEPAUL L.
REV. 1 (2008)
Evaluating a century of race based annulment cases prior to Loving v. Virginia, this piece
demonstrates how the courts employed images of white womanhood to protect the stability of
whiteness and white society.
Contributing Author, EDUCATION IN THE 50 STATES: A DESKBOOK HISTORY OF STATE
CONSTITUTIONS & LAWS ABOUT EDUCATION (Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia 2008)
Note: The Color of Crime: The Case Against Race Based Suspect Descriptions, 103 COLUM. L. REV. 662 (2003)
This piece reveals how the use of use of race identifiers in criminal suspect descriptions create
discriminatory and ineffective law enforcement.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Roger Williams University School of Law:
Family Law (Fall 2013; Fall 2012; Fall 2011)
Sexuality and the Law (Fall 2013; Fall 2012)
Property (Spring 2013; Spring 2012)
Fordham Law School:
Property (Fall 2010; Fall 2009)
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PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Admitted to the State Bar of New York, November 2006
Professional Affiliations: American Bar Association, Society of American Law Teachers, Collaborative
Research Network: Critical Research on Race and the Law; Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative
Research Network
Committees: 2014 SALT/LatCrit Faculty Development Workshop planning committee; 2015 Family Law
Scholars and Teachers Conference planning committee
Selected Participant, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute: The Meanings of
Property, Poughkeepsie, NY (June 1-27, 2014)
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS
ClassCrits VII: Poverty, Precarity, and Work, When the State Decides Parental Status, Los Angeles, CA
(Nov. 14, 2013)
LatCrit-SALT Junior Faculty Development Workshop, Facilitator, On Scholarship: Writing Critical and
Progressive Scholarship, Las Vegas, NV (Oct. 9, 2014)
UCLA Critical Race Studies Symposium, Whiteness as Property: Racializing Childhood and Parenthood, Los
Angeles, CA (Oct 4, 2014)
New York Area Family Law Scholars, From Children as Property to Fundamental Right, New York, NY
(July 30, 2014)
Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Discussant: Sexual Violence & Feminist Legal Theory,
Minneapolis, MN (May 30, 2014)
Emerging Family Law Scholars and Teachers Conference, When the State Decides Parental Status,
Minneapolis, MN (May 28, 2014)
Columbia Law School, Guest Speaker for Prof. Patricia J. Williams, L8678 Human Identity, Justice and
the Scientific Revolution: Just Like Family, New York, NY (Mar. 12, 2014)
University of Miami School of Law Marriage Equality Series, Conflict of Laws: Relocation of LGBT
Spouses and their Families (and their Assets), Miami, FL (Feb. 19, 2014)
ClassCrits VI: Stuck in Forward? Debt, Austerity and the Possibilities of the Political, Zoning In:
Federal & Local Tensions in Land, Los Angeles, CA (Nov. 15, 2013)
Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, The Relationship between the Courts and Other Institutions of
Government, Boston, MA (May 30, 2013)
County Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida, Investiture of the Honorable Tanya Brinkley,
Miami, FL (Apr. 26, 2013)
Warwick City Council, Testimony on “Resolution to the General Assembly Supporting House Bill 5056 and
Senate Bill 38”, Warwick, RI (Apr. 8, 2013)
Rhode Island Public Radio: Morning Edition, What are the implications of same-sex marriage in RI?,
Providence, RI (Jan. 24, 2013)
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ClassCrits V, Moderator, Political Failure in Tax Systems, Madison, WI (Nov. 16, 2012)
Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Stephanie Wildman’s “Privilege Revealed”—Past, Present, and
Future, Honolulu, HI (June 8, 2012)
Michigan State University College of Law Faculty Presentation, Property Law &Personhood, Lansing,
MI (Mar. 30, 2012)
Association for Law, Property & Society Conference, Property Law &Personhood, Washington, DC
(Mar. 2, 2012)
Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Zoning In: Property Law, Personhood & the Siting of Drug
Rehabilitation Clinics, San Francisco, CA (June 3, 2011)
Planning, Law, and Property Rights International Conference, Zoning In: Property Law, Personhood &
the Siting of Drug Rehabilitation Clinics, Edmonton, Alberta (May 28, 2011)
Association for Law, Property & Society Conference, Zoning In: State Power & the Siting of Drug
Rehabilitation Clinics, Washington, DC (Mar. 5, 2011)
Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Zoned Out: Zoning Drug Rehabilitation Clinics, Chicago,
IL (May 28, 2010)
Critical Race Studies Symposium, Race, Marital Norms, and Legal Engagements, Los Angeles, CA (Mar.
13, 2010)
Columbia Law School Associate Workshop, Zoned Out: Zoning, Drug Rehabilitation and the Americans
with Disabilities Act, New York, NY (Feb. 24, 2010)
Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Marriage, Power, and Inequality: 19th and 20th Century
Lessons for the 21st Century, Denver, CO (May 28, 2009)
Columbia Law School Associate Workshop, Dissecting Family Privacy and Sex Offender Statutes, New
York, NY (Sept. 17, 2008)
Columbia Law School Associate Workshop, Examining Sex Offender Civil Sanctions, New York, NY
(Apr. 9, 2008)
Seventh Annual Quality Education Conference, Convincing Courts to Issue Strong Orders, Washington,
DC (June 8, 2007)
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