Before entering academia, Kathy Abrams clerked for Judge Frank M. Johnson of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. She has taught at the law schools at Boston University, Indiana University-Bloomington, Harvard University and Northwestern University. Most recently, she was Professor of Law and Associate Professor of Ethics and Public Life at Cornell University. While at Cornell, she served as Director of the Women's Studies Program, and won several awards for teaching and for service to women. She joined the Boalt faculty in 2001.
Abrams teaches feminist jurisprudence, voting rights and constitutional law. Her scholarship has explored questions of employment discrimination, minority vote dilution, campaign finance, constitutional law, and law and the emotions, but it has focused most centrally on feminist jurisprudence. Within this area, Abrams has written on feminist methodology and epistemology, the jurisprudence of sexual harassment, and cultural and theoretical constructions of women's agency.
Abrams' recent publications include "Fighting Fire with Fire: Rethinking the Role of Disgust in Hate Crimes" in the California Law Review (2002), "Subordination and Agency in Sexual Harassment Law" in Directions in Sexual Harassment Law (2003), "Extraordinary Measures: Protesting Rule of Law Violations after Bush v. Gore" in Law & Philosophy (2002), and "The Legal Subject in Exile" in the Duke Law Journal (2001).
