Prof. Sheryll D. Cashin

Sheryll Cashin, Professor of Law at Georgetown University, teaches Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, and Race and American Law among other subjects. She writes about race relations, government and inequality in America. Her new book, Place Not Race: A New Vision of Opportunity in America (Beacon Press, 2014), argues that affirmative action as currently practiced does little to help disadvantaged people and offers a new framework for true inclusion. Her book, The Failures of Integration (PublicAffairs, 2004) was an Editors' Choice in the New York Times Book Review. Cashin is also a two-time nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for non-fiction (2005 and 2009). She has published widely in academic journals and written commentaries for several periodicals, including the L.A. Times, Washington Post, and Education Week.

Professor Cashin is an active member of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) and Building ONE America, an emerging national network of state and regional coalitions promoting sustainable growth and social inclusion. She worked in the Clinton White House as an advisor on urban and economic policy, particularly concerning community development in inner-city neighborhoods. She was law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. As a Marshall Scholar, she went on to receive a masters in English Law with honors from Oxford University and a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School where she was a member of the Harvard Law Review. Cashin was born and raised in Huntsville, Alabama, where her parents were political activists. She is married to Marque Chambliss and the mother of twin boys, Logan and Langston.