Research Expertise and Interest

anti discrimination law, race and sexuality, law and psychology, constitutional law, media and entertainment law

Research Description

Russell Robinson is the Faculty Director, Center on Race, Sexuality & Culture, and a Professor of Law.

Robinson’s scholarly and teaching interests include anti-discrimination law, constitutional law, race and sexuality, law and psychology, and media and entertainment law. His publications include: 

• “It’s Like Slapping Somebody in the Face in the Middle of Sex”: An Intersectional Exploration of Emotional Abuse in Queer Relationships, Journal of Family Violence (2024)
• Sexual Racism as White Privilege: the relationship and psychic negotiation of desire, power, and sex in (Un)Desiring Whiteness: (Un)Doing Sexual Racism (forthcoming Oxford U. Press 2024)
• Marriage equality & intersectionality, Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 1-22 (2023) (with David M. Frost)
• What Christianity Loses When Conservative Christians Win at the Supreme Court, 2021 Sup. Ct. Rev. (2022)
• Lawrence v. Texas Rewritten in Critical Race Judgments: Rewritten Supreme Court Opinions on Race and the Law (Cambridge U. Press 2022)
• Mayor Pete, Obergefell Gays, and White Male Privilege, 69 Buff. L. Rev. 295 (2021)
• “’Playing It Safe’ with Empirical Evidence: Selective Use of Social Science in Supreme Court Cases About Racial Justice and Marriage Equality,” 112 Northwestern Law Rev. 1565 (2018); “LGBT Equality and Sexual Racism,” 86 Fordham L. Rev. 2739 (2018); “The Afterlife of Homophobia,” 60 Ariz. L. Rev. 213 (2018); “Unequal Protection,” 67 Stan. L. Rev. (2015); “Diverging Identities,” in After Marriage: The Future of LGBT Rights,NYU Press (2015); “Marriage Equality and Postracialism,” 61 UCLA L. Rev. 1010 (2014); “Masculinity as Prison: Sexual Identity, Race, and Incarceration,” 99 Calif. L. Rev. 1309 (2011); “Casting and Caste-ing: Reconciling Artistic Freedom and Antidiscrimination Norms,” 95 Calif. L. Rev. 1 (2007); “Uncovering Covering,” 101 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1809 (2007); “Perceptual Segregation,” 108 Colum. L. Rev. 1093 (2008); “Structural Dimensions of Romantic Preferences,” 76 Fordham L. Rev. 2787 (2008); and “Racing the Closet,” 61 Stan. L. Rev. 1463 (2009).

Prior to joining UC Berkeley, Robinson was Professor of Law at UCLA. Robinson graduated with honors from Harvard Law School, after receiving his B.A. summa cum laude from Hampton University. Robinson clerked for Judge Dorothy Nelson of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court. He has also worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel and the firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld in Los Angeles, practicing entertainment law.