The Hope Lewis Distinguished Lecture honors the late Professor Hope Lewis, a globally renowned legal scholar, human rights advocate and beloved Northeastern Law professor from 1992 until her untimely death in 2016. An extraordinary mentor and advocate, Lewis was internationally acclaimed for scholarship in the areas of human rights, the rights of non-citizens and persons with disabilities. Among her many contributions to the Northeastern Law community, Lewis was the driving force in founding the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy. This annual series celebrates her legacy by featuring a keynote address from a distinguished advocate, jurist or scholar who has made significant contributions to advancing human rights.

The Hope Lewis Distinguished Lecture is made possible through a generous gift from the estate of Hope Lewis and Blossom Stephenson to the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern Law.

Save the Date for the 2026 Hope Lewis Distinguished Lecture

March 23, 2026 | 12:00 PM | Northeastern University School of Law

Keynote Speaker
Cheryl I. Harris
Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Professor in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, UCLA Law

Cheryl I. Harris is the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation chair in civil rights and civil liberties at UCLA Law. She teaches constitutional law, civil rights, employment discrimination, critical race theory and race-conscious remedies. Author of the acclaimed “Whiteness as Property” (Harvard Law Review), Harris is a leading scholar in critical race theory and is recognized for her foundational contributions to the field.

A graduate of Wellesley College and Northwestern School of Law, Harris began her career as an appellate and trial litigator at leading criminal defense firms in Chicago. As part of her pro bono work, she contributed to major civil and human rights projects, including police oversight measures and the development of anti-apartheid sanctions legislation. Following the historic election of Harold Washington as Chicago's first Black mayor, Harris became a senior legal adviser in the city's Office of Legal Counsel, where she helped craft major reform initiatives designed to improve government accountability, transparency and racial equity.

Harris began teaching law in 1990 at Chicago-Kent College of Law. In 1991, she was a key organizer of conferences between U.S. legal scholars and South African lawyers during the development of South Africa's first democratic constitution, ratified in 1994. Since then, she has been part of human rights delegations in several conflict zones, including Northern Ireland and Haiti, and participated in convenings on race, inequality and human rights across the globe.

In 1998, Harris joined the faculty at UCLA School of Law. She was a founding member of the law school's Critical Race Studies Program and has served as its faculty director several times. She holds a joint appointment with UCLA's Department of African American Studies and served as the department's chair from 2014-16 in its early formation years.
Harris' scholarship critically examines the relationship between law and racial power across several areas, including anti-discrimination law, property relations and, more recently, conceptions of debt. Her work has appeared in leading law journals, including Harvard Law Review, California Law Review and UCLA Law Review. Her engagement with civil rights history, Black political thought and critical theory has led to publications in influential interdisciplinary journals and collections.

Harris has been widely recognized as a groundbreaking teacher, receiving the ACLU Foundation of Southern California's Distinguished Professor Award for Civil Rights Education in 2005 and the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2018. In 2022, she was awarded UCLA's Distinguished Teaching Award. She became the law school's first vice dean of community, equality and justice in 2021.

Her current projects include an initiative responding to the attacks on critical race theory, for which she was the principal investigator on a major grant, and the revision of the landmark textbook Race, Racism and American Law by Derrick Bell.

Check back soon for further details.

Northeastern Law’s Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR) proudly hosts this lecture series.