Daria Roithmayr, a nationally recognized critical race theorist, has joined the USC Gould School of Law as a professor.
Roithmayr, who was recruited from the University of Illinois, specializes in discrimination, immigration, evidence law, civil litigation, and trade and globalization. For the past decade, she has examined similarities between race discrimination and market monopolies. She has developed a theoretical model based on market monopolies that explains why racial disparities in jobs, housing and education might persist even if people no longer intentionally discriminate. Roithmayr will publish her findings in her book, Locked in Inequality: A Market Lock-In Model of Racial Discrimination, in 2007.
“We are thrilled to have Daria here at USC Law,” says Edward J. McCaffery, Dean and Carl M. Franklin Chair in Law. “Daria is an innovative scholar, an engaging teacher and a wonderful, spirited colleague. Our faculty and students alike look forward to working with and learning from her.”
Roithmayr received a B.S. in psychobiology from UCLA and her J.D. magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was a member of Order of the Coif and served as senior notes editor for the Georgetown Law Journal. After graduation she clerked for Judge Marvin J. Garbis, on the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.
USC Law’s interdisciplinary scholarship and high-caliber faculty attracted Roithmayr to the school.
“I came to USC because the faculty here is top-notch and because the unique mix of people here — people who do law and economics working together with people who do more law and social science — fits perfectly with my intellectual interests,” she said. “The diversity of the law school student population, and the vibrant activism of Los Angeles, also were very important factors to me.”
Before joining the faculty at University of Illinois in 1996, Roithmayr twice served as special counsel for Sen. Edward Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee, advising him on the nominations of Justice David Souter and Justice Clarence Thomas.
“Working for Senator Kennedy during the Clarence Thomas and David Souter nominations was incredibly exciting, particularly during the Thomas nominations,” she said. “During the Anita Hill hearings, I began to understand how law, politics, race and gender interact in a way that reproduces power, even when the form of power changes.”
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