Dr. Lolita Buckner Inniss
Dean & Provost
About Dr. Lolita Buckner Inniss
Dr. Lolita Buckner Inniss is the dean of the University of Colorado Law School, and is also Provost's Professor of Law. Before coming to CU Law she served as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and a Professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law. At SMU she was a University Distinguished Professor, an honor reserved for SMU faculty members who demonstrate the highest levels of academic achievement. She was also a Robert G. Storey Distinguished Faculty Fellow. Dean Inniss previously held the Hamilton College Elihu Root Peace Fund Visiting Professorship in Women's Studies, a distinguished visiting chair, and was also a fellow of the New York University-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Memory Project in Paris, France.
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A highly regarded scholar with a prominent national and international voice in her fields, Dr. Inniss is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and is the United States Special Rapporteur to the International Academy of Comparative Law on the topic of contemporary slavery. The Center for Compassionate Leadership named her book The Princeton Fugitive Slave: The Trials of James Collins Johnson (Fordham University Press, 2020) as one of five books white leaders should read on systemic racism. She is also the co-author of a book in progress, Talking About Black Lives Matter and #MeToo (with Bridget Crawford) (University of California Press, 2023). She has in addition published scores of journal articles, essays, book chapters and blog articles in publications in the United States and beyond. Dean Inniss has taught across the law school curriculum, including property law, comparative racism and the law, real estate transactions, and immigration clinical practice.
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Dr. Inniss received her A.B. from Princeton University, where she majored in Romance Languages and Literature with certifications (minors) in African American and Latin American Studies. She earned her J.D. from UCLA where she was an editor of the National Black Law Journal and a Moot Court Honors Participant. She holds an LL.M. with Distinction and a Ph.D. in law from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, in Canada, where she won the Mary Jane Mossman Award for Work in Feminist Legal Theory and the Harley D. Hallett Award, and was a Peter Hogg Scholar and a Graduate Associate of the Institute of Feminist Legal Studies.
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Dr. Inniss will be the Afternoon Session Speaker on Thursday, May 26th at 1pm.