Williams worked as a consumer advocate in the office of the City Attorney in Los Angeles, was a fellow in the School of Criticism and Theory at Dartmouth College and served as associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School and its department of women's studies. She was formerly the James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University where she has taught since 1991.[2]
As of July 1, 2019, she is the incoming Director of Law, Technology, and Ethics at Northeastern University.[3]
Williams has served on the advisory council for the Medgar Evers College for Law and Social Justice of the City University of New York, the board of trustees of Wellesley College, and on the board of governors for the Society of American Law Teachers, among others.[4]
Williams writes a column for The Nation magazine titled "Diary of a Mad Law Professor." Her column for The Nation has recently changed from bi-weekly to monthly. The Mad-Law-Professor (SM) is also the name of a super hero that she created.[citation needed]
On March 1, 2013, Columbia Law School's Center for Gender & Sexuality Law honored her with a symposium[5] featuring Anita Hill, Lani Guinier, and others.[6]
On March 30, 2022, she received an honorary degree from the Faculty of Law, University of Antwerp "in recognition of her expertise in the field of race, gender, literature & law and her outstanding contribution to legal and ethical debates on society, science and technology in the light of individual autonomy and identity."[7]
Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race (1997) (ISBN0-374-52533-1)
Open House: Of Family, Friends, Food, Piano Lessons, and the Search for a Room of My Own (2004) (ISBN0-374-11407-2)
The Blind Goddess: A Reader on Race and Justice (2011) (ISBN1-595-58699-7)
The Best Day Ever (1998)
Giving a Damn: Racism, Romance and Gone with the Wind (2021) ISBN978-0008404505
References
^Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (New York: New York University Press, 2001)
^Kinohi Nishikawa, "Patricia J. Williams," The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature, ed. Hans Ostrom and J. David Macey, Jr. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005), 1747–49.