Patricia Williams Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

05.05.26 — Northeastern University School of Law warmly congratulates University Distinguished Professor of Law and Humanities Patricia Williams on her election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies. Williams was among 252 distinguished leaders elected to the Academy’s class of 2026, recognized in the Social and Behavioral Sciences — Law section. Induction ceremonies will take place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in October.

“This is truly the honor of a lifetime. I am overwhelmed — with humility, with happiness, with profound gratitude,” said Williams, one of the most provocative intellectuals in American law.

Williams’ election to the Academy is the latest in a remarkable series of honors recognizing a career of transformative impact. Williams has published widely in the areas of race, gender, literature and law, earning a MacArthur Fellowship and the 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction. Her groundbreaking book The Alchemy of Race and Rights (Harvard University Press, 1992) was hailed by leaders of the academy and press as changing the voice of legal scholarship. The book was also named one of the 25 best books of 1991 by the Voice Literary Supplement, one of the “feminist classics of the last 20 years” that “literally changed women's lives” by Ms. magazine, and one of the 10 best nonfiction books of the decade by Amazon. She has authored six books and hundreds of essays, book reviews and articles for leading journals, popular magazines and newspapers, including the Guardian, Ms., The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Washington Post, and for many years wrote a monthly column in The Nation. In April of 2026, her book The Miracle of the Black Leg: Notes on Race, Human Bodies, and the Spirit of the Law (The New Press, 2024) was published in Korean.

At the 2026 AALS Annual Conference, Williams was named co-recipient of the AALS Women in Legal Education Section’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award, which honors women who have led distinguished careers in teaching, service and scholarship for at least 20 years and who have had a lasting impact on women, the legal community and the academy. She also received the AALS Section on Minority Groups’ Impact Legacy Award, which recognizes a legal educator who has shown a sustained commitment to and transformative impact upon legal education, one or more legal systems or social justice.

Perhaps the most enduring testament to her influence came in 2024, when the Race and Private Law Section of the AALS established an annual award in her name — the Patricia J. Williams Award — celebrating her role as a leading critical race theorist, feminist legal theorist and private law trailblazer.