Joan Williams

Distinguished Professor of Law (Emerita) and Founding Director of the Equality Action Center

Office: 636-200
Email: williams@uclawsf.edu
Phone: (415) 565-4706

Bio

Described as “legendary” by the New Yorker and as having “something approaching rock star status” in her field by The New York Times Magazine, Joan C. Williams is a scholar of social inequality and a prominent public intellectual. Williams is the author of 12 books and 116 academic articles in law, sociology, psychology, medical, and management journals. Her H-index is 59; she is the 11^th most cited legal scholar both in critical theory and employment law. She is a Distinguished Professor of Law (Emerita) and Director of the Equality Action Center at UC Law San Francisco. Until 2024, she was Founding Director of the Center for WorkLife Law. She has three TED/TEDx talks, including one with over 1.3 million views. Her 2016 essay on why Trump attracted so many non-college voters went viral, with over 3.7 million reads, becoming the most-read article in the 90-year history of Harvard Business Review.

She was profiled in Financial Times and has published in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Politico, The Hill, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.

Class Dynamics in American Politics

Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Middle – And How to Win Them Back. Her 2017 book White Working Class

Her work on class includes her latest book Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Middle – And How to Win Them Back. Her 2017 book White Working Class – one of three books President Biden carried, dog-eared and annotated, during his 2020 presidential campaign, according to the Washington Post. Her Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter grew out of her 2008 Massey Lectures in American Civilization at Harvard University, delivered in prior years by (among others) Eudora Welty, Gore Vidal and Toni Morrison. Her Bridging the Diploma Divide website provides resources to counter the class dynamics that drive far-right populism.

Gender Dynamics in Work, Family and Life

As Founding Director of WorkLife Law, Williams has played a leading role in documenting workplace bias against mothers, leading to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) 2007 Guidance on Caregiver Discrimination. Her article “Beyond the Maternal Wall: Relief for Family Caregivers Who Are Discriminated Against on the Job,” 26 Harvard Women’s Law Review 77 (2003)(co-authored with Nancy Segal), was prominently cited in the landmark case, Back v. Hastings on Hudson Union Free School District, 365 F.3d 107 (2d Cir. 2004). Her work on gender also includes What Works for Women at Work: Four Patterns Working Women Need to Know (NYU Press, 2014) and her prize-winning Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What To Do About It (Oxford, 1999). Williams’ work helped create the field of work-family studies, modern workplace flexibility policies, and the study of maternal wall bias in sociology.

Racial and Gender Bias in Today’s Workplaces

Her work on race includes eight studies documenting how racial and gender bias play out in today’s workplaces, including two focused specifically on women of color: Pinning down the Jellyfish: Racial and Gender Bias against Women in Tech (2022) and Double Jeopardy? Gender Bias against Women of Color in STEM (2014). She is a leading voice on diversity, equity, and inclusion; with her team, she has published 39 articles published in Harvard Business Review. In 2014, she launched Bias Interrupters, a data-driven approach to interrupting bias in organizations whose website has been viewed over half a million times. The biasinterrupters.org website, with open-sourced toolkits for individuals and organizations, has been accessed over 660,000 times.

Awards

Williams has received awards in several different fields. For her contributions to the legal profession, she is one of the few people to receive both the American Bar Foundation’s Outstanding Scholar Award (2012) and the ABA’s Margaret Brent Women Award for Lawyers of Achievement (2006). For her contributions to the work-family field, she received the Work Life Legacy Award from the Families and Work Institute (2014) and MSOM Responsible Research Award in Operations Management (2022). For her contributions to women’s advancement in engineering, she received the President’s Award from the Society of Women Engineers (2019). For contributions to psychology, she received the Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology (2005).

Grants and degrees

Her work has been funded by three National Science Foundation grants, as well as grants from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the W. W. Kellogg Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She holds degrees from Yale, Harvard, and MIT as well as an honorary PhD from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Spinoffs

Williams is a serial entrepreneur who founded the following—here’s who runs them now.

Bias Interrupters

Now run by the Melcher Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at NYU LINK Williams founded Bias Interrupters in 2014. Bias Interrupters are evidence-based tools for leveling the playing field in today’s workplaces, which still are deeply shaped by inequalities based on gender, race, and social class origin. Williams led NUMBER studies on how racial and gender bias play out in organizations (se Publications).

WorkLife Law

Now run by Jessica Lee and Liz Morris at UC Law, San Francisco, Williams founded WorkLife Law in 1998 with Professor Adrienne Davis of the Washington University. WorkLife Law pioneered the legal theories caregivers use to challenge workplace discrimination. It has emerged as a major voice for caregivers’ rights at both the state and federal level.

Leadership Edge

Founded by Williams in 2014 and now run by SpeechSkills Foundation, Leadership Edge offers high-quality, evidence-based leadership programming to help employers develop their full talent pool.

*link: womensleadershipedge.org

Education

Harvard Law School
J.D., Law
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
M.A., City Planning
Yale University
B.A., History

Accomplishments

President’s Award
Awarded by the Society for Women Engineers 2019
Honorary PhD
Awarded by the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands 2017
Work Life Legacy Award
Awarded by the Families and Work Institute. 2014
Visionary Award
Awarded by The University of California College of the Law SF 2013
Outstanding Scholar Award
Awarded by the American Bar Foundation. 2012
Margaret Brent Award for Women Lawyers of Achievement
Awarded by the American Bar Foundation 2006
Distinguished Publication Award x
Awarded by the Association for Women in Psychology 2005
MSOM Responsible Research Award in Operations Management
Awarded by the Community for Responsible Research for Business and Management 2022