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About Saleema Snow

Vanita "Saleema" Snow is a Professor of Law and Director of the Youth Justice Clinic at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law. Through a critical race theory lens, her research focuses on youth justice, gender equity, and the intersection of poverty, gender, and access to justice. Her students have recognized her teaching in numerous ways including awarding her a Student Bar Association’s Outstanding Law Professor Award.
 
Professor Snow has spoken at numerous panels, conferences and symposiums, including Yale School of Law, Harvard’s Critical Race Theory Conference, and the American Bar Association Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice. Professor Snow’s scholarship has appeared in various law journals, including Berkely Journal of Gender, Law & Justice; Drexel Law Review; Pace Law Review; and the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law (forthcoming). Her article, Reframing Radical Religion, which appeared in the Georgetown Journal of Law and Modern Critical Race Perspectives, argues that stigmatizing Muslims as terrorists emboldens xenophobia, racism, and hate crimes. Equally significant, the stereotype garners widespread public support and judicial protections for discriminatory policies that adversely and disproportionately affect Muslims. Framing theory remains an important aspect of her scholarship in other substantive areas of law.
 
Before joining academia, Professor Snow spent over fifteen years representing low-income clients in the District of Columbia and in rural communities in Georgia. She began her legal career as a Covington and Burling Westwood Fellow at the Neighborhood Legal Services Program and represented hundreds of District of Columbia clients during her tenure. She also served as Director of Legal Services at Advocates for Justice and Education, where she represented students in school disciplinary hearings and trained District of Columbia stakeholders on special education law and the school-to-prison pipeline. Her commitment to legal services continued at Georgia Legal Services Program, where she formed a state-wide education advocacy committee to address discriminatory practices against students of color in the school-to-prison pipeline.
 
At UDC Law, the Youth Justice Clinic continues this work by focusing on systems of oppression that support the school-to-prison pipeline. At its core, the Youth Justice Clinic seeks to improve outcomes for youth by amplifying racial disparities in the juvenile legal system and ensuring youth voices are positively amplified, seen, and offered meaningful opportunities for success. 
 
Professor Snow is the member of the board of the ACLU of DC. She is past president of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers, former President of KARMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, and a former board member of the District of Columbia Bar Board of Governors.
 
 
Publications
·         The Eve Syndrome: Demonizing Immigrant Muslim Women (work-in-progress).
Transportation: The Hidden Right to Exclude, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law . ___ 2023) (forthcoming)
·         Veiling and Inverted Masking, 36 Berkeley J. Gender L & Just. 1 (2021).
·         Reframing Radical Religion, 11 GEO. J. OF L. & MOD. CRIT. RACE PERSP. 1 (2019).
·         From the Dark Tower: Unbridled Civil Asset Forfeiture, 10 Drexel L. Rev. 1 (2018).
·         The Untold Story of the Justice Gap: Integrating Poverty Law into the Law School Curriculum, 37 Pace L. Rev. 642 (2017).
 
Selected Presentations
·         Understanding Civil Asset Forfeiture, Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, November 2020 (podcast)
·         Islamophobia After the Muslim Ban, ABA Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice, November 2020 (webinar)
·         Race and the Law: An Interview with Keith Ellison, National Association of Muslim Lawyers, October 2020 (webinar)
·         Race, Religion, and Gender, Szymanski Rule of Law, July 2020 (webinar)
·         COVID Town Hall, National Association of Muslim Lawyers, May 2020 (webinar)
·         Politics of Vulnerability and The Threat to Religion and Religious Freedom, Inclusive American Project, ASPEN Institute, March 2020
·         Diversity and Inclusion, A Muslim Perspective, Penn State Law, October 2019
·         Teaching and Writing as Resistance, Southeastern Association of Law Schools, August 2019
·         Servant Leadership, KARAMAH: Muslim Women Leaders for Human Rights, June 2019
·         Movement Lawyering for Racial Liberation, Harvard Law School, April 2019
·         It's All Write: Teaching Legal Writing as Resistance, Fourth National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, American University Washington College of Law, March 2019
·         Incarceration and Religious Freedom, Muslim Law Symposium: Our Forgotten Community: Prisoners’ Rights & Religious Freedom, UDC-DCSL, February 2019 (moderator)
·         Technology and the Commons: Building Community, Rethinking Learning Spaces, and Expanding our Reach, University of Pittsburg School of Law, November 2018
·         Diversity, Inclusion, and Community, National Association of Muslim Law Students Annual Conference, Yale School of Law, November 2018
·         Law and Pluralism, Aspen Institute, October 2018
·         Religious Lawyering at Twenty, Fordham University School of Law, September 2018
·         Race, Education, and Economic Justice, Race and the Trump Administration Symposium, Georgetown University Law Center, April 2018
·         The Missing Bootstrap: Closing the Transportation Equity Gap American University Washington College of Law, March 2018
·         From Hoodies To Hijabs: A Necessary Conversation About Race, Religion And Politics, Georgetown University Law Center, October 2017
·         Islamophobia and Hate Crimes Against Muslim Women, Gender Justice Conference, University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, October 2017
·         From the Dark Tower: Unbridled Civil Asset Forfeiture, Legal Writing Institute Scholars Forum, Washington, D.C., July 2017
·         Islamophobia: A Social Justice Issue, Bryn Mawr College, November 2016
·         Anti-Muslim Bullying: Emerging Trends and Pro Bono Opportunities, C-SPAN, October 2016 (moderator)
·         Reclaiming Radical Religion, Getting Radical in the South Conference, University of Texas Law School, October 2016
·         Changing the Soil: Embedding Racial Equity in the Academic Garden, SALT, John Marshall Law School, September 2016
·         The Untold Story of the Justice Gap: Integrating Poverty Law into the Law School Curriculum, AALS Legal Writing Scholars’ Forum, University of Baltimore, March 2016
·         From the Dark Tower: The “Roulette Wheel” of Government Forfeiture Actions, 21st, Mid-Atlantic People of Color Conference, American University College of Law, January 2016
·         To Judge or Not to Judge: Women in the Judiciary in the Muslim World, Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia, October 2014 (moderator)
·         Access to Justice Fifty Years after the War on Poverty, University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law: Law Review Symposium, April 2014 (moderator)
·         Effective Client Interviews in Special Education Practice, University of Georgia School of Law, September 2010, January 2011
·         Using Special Education Law to Advocate for Parental Involvement, Dekalb County Juvenile Court - Georgia Public Defenders Standards Council, March 2009
·         Public School Zero-Tolerance Policies and their Relationship to the School to Prison Pipeline: Alice in Wonderland Redux, The Intersection of Childhood and the Criminal Justice
System Conference, University of Georgia, October 2008

Positions

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Courses

  • Critical Race Theory
  • Moot Court
  • Lawyering Process I & II

Contact Information

(202) 274-7439