Nancy Leong
Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship & Provost Professor
Director, Constitutional Rights and Remedies Program
303-871-6092 (Office)
Office 464C, Frank H. Ricketson Law Bldg., 2255 East Evans Ave. Denver, CO 80208
Specialization(s)
Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, Critical Race theory
Professional Biography
Professor Nancy Leong has published extensively on topics related to constitutional rights and remedies, criminal procedure, antidiscrimination, law and culture, and judicial decision-making. Her scholarship has appeared or will appear in the California Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Stanford Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and the Journal of Legal Education, among many others. Her first book, "Identity Capitalists," was published by Stanford University Press in 2021.
Professor Leong has been a member of the American Law Institute (ALI) since 2017. She received the University of Denver's Distinguished Scholar Award for the 2017-2018 academic year, which recognizes "unusually significant and meritorious achievement in professional scholarship, as evidenced by publications and their enhancing effect on classroom teaching." Her research was selected for presentation at the 2016 Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum held at Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut. She was also the 2015 recipient of the Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Faculty 2015 Eric K. Yamamoto Award for excellence in scholarship and teaching. The law school student body voted her "Most Outstanding Faculty Member" in 2021 and 2022.
Professor Leong graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern University before attending Stanford Law School, where she graduated with distinction and was a member of the Stanford Law Review. After earning her law degree, she clerked for Judge Kermit Lipez of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Prior to joining the University of Denver faculty, Professor Leong was an Assistant Professor at the William & Mary School of Law and an Adjunct Professor at the American University Washington College of Law. She has also been a visitor at the UCLA School of Law, the Washington University School of Law, and the University of Iowa School of Law.
A fourth-generation Coloradan, Professor Leong is also the first Asian American woman to achieve the rank of full professor at the Sturm College of Law.
View CV
Degree(s)
- JD, Stanford Law School, 2006
- BA, English, Northwestern University, 2001
- BMus, Northwestern University, 2001
Featured Publications
Book
- Identity Capitalists: The Powerful Insiders Who Exploit Diversity to Maintain Inequality (Stanford University Press 2021).
Articles
- Civil Rights Liability for Bad Hiring, 108 Minnesota Law Review ____ (forthcoming 2024).
- Pleading Failures in Monell Litigation, 73 Emory Law Journal ____ (forthcoming 2024) (coauthored).
- How Crime Dramas Undermine Miranda, 14 Irvine Law Review ____ (forthcoming 2024) (coauthored).
- Municipal Failures, 108 Cornell Law Review 345 (2023).
- Enjoyed by White Citizens, 108 Georgetown Law Journal 1421 (2021).
- Against Women’s Sports, 95 Washington University Law Review 1251 (2018).
- The New Public Accommodations: Race Discrimination in the Platform Economy, 105 Georgetown Law Journal 1271 (2017) (coauthored).
- Identity Entrepreneurs, 104 California Law Review 1333 (2016).
- Negative Identity, 88 Southern California Law Review 1357 (2015).
- Improving Rights, 100 Virginia Law Review 377 (2014).
- Racial Capitalism, 126 Harvard Law Review 2151 (2013).
- Gideon’s Law Protective Function, 122 Yale Law Journal 2460 (2013) (symposium).
- Making Rights, 92 Boston University Law Review 405 (2012).
