Fields of Interest: Public Law, Law & Society, Feminist Jurisprudence

Professor Binion is a specialist in Public Law and previous chair of the Law and Society Program. Her research interests include civil rights and civil liberties within the U.S. constitutional structure, with special emphasis on the status of women, ethnic minorities and the poor. She is particularly interested in understanding the role of the judiciary in defining and protecting constitutional rights. Her articles have appeared in such journals as The Supreme Court Review, Human Rights Quarterly, Judicature, Law & Society Review, Journal of Supreme Court History, Human Rights Quarterly, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, Policy Studies Review, Social Science Quarterly, Berkeley Women’s Law Journal, Women & Politics, Law & Politics Quarterly, Journal of Urban Law, Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, and Western Political Quarterly. She has also published widely in more popular media including The Center Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Beverly Hills Bar Journal, Sacramento Bee, Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, and Santa Barbara News-Press. She is currently working on a book entitled Toward a Feminist Regrounding of Constitutional Law and a project on judicial restraint.

From 2001 to 2003, Professor Binion served as Vice Chair and Chair of the University-wide Academic Senate, representing UC faculty at the Office of the President and on the Board of Regents. More recently, 2004-2006, she was the Director of UC Education Abroad at California House in London, UK.

Courses Taught:

PS 115	Law and the Modern State
PS 167	Constitutional Law: The Bill of Rights
PS 106GP	Gender, the Courts, and Public Policy
PS 262	Graduate Seminar in Courts and Politics

Selected Recent Publications:
"Human Rights: A Feminist Perspective," in Women's Rights: A Human Rights Quarterly Reader, ed. Bert B. Lockwood (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).

"Potter Stewart," in Biographical Dictionary of United States Supreme Court Justices, ed. Melvin Urofsky (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2006).

"The First Two Centuries," in The U.S. House of Representatives: Reform or Rebuild? ed. Joseph Zimmerman and Wilma Rule (Westport: Praeger, 2000), pp. 15-27.

"Feminist Jurisprudence and the First Amendment: Hearing Another Voice," Review of Law and Women's Studies (University of Southern California School of Law) 7 (Spring 1998), pp. 269-298.