Ayelet Shachar (LL.M., J.S.D, Yale Law School) is the Irving G. and Eleanor D. Tragen Chair in Comparative Law, University of California, Berkeley. Previously, she held the R.F. Harney Chair in Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies at the University of Toronto. From 2015-2020, she was a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society—one of the foremost research organizations in the world—and Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity.
Professor Shachar has published extensively on the topics of citizenship theory, immigration law, highly skilled migration and global inequality, multiculturalism and women’s rights, law and religion in comparative perspective, and the fraught relations between human rights law and territorial conceptions of sovereignty. Her teaching and research interests include law and religion, citizenship and immigration law and policy, comparative and international law, legal theory, and anti-discrimination law.
She is the author of over 100 articles and book chapters, as well as several major books, including Multicultural Jurisdictions: Cultural Differences and Women’s Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2001 & 2009), for which she won the American Political Science Association 2002 Foundations of Political Theory Section Best First Book Award. This work has inspired a new generation of thinking about how to best mitigate the tensions between gender equality and religious diversity. It has also proved influential in actual public policy and legislative debates. It has been cited by, among others, England’s Archbishop of Canterbury (who described her work as “highly original and significant”) and the Supreme Court of Canada. Over the last twenty years, Multicultural Jurisdictions has become a key reference point for feminist approaches to the study of law and religion.
Her next book, The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality (Harvard University Press, 2009) also created a groundswell of interest among policymakers and academics alike. It was named 2010 International Ethics Notable Book in recognition of its “superior scholarship and contribution to the field of international ethics.”
Professor Shachar is the lead editor of the field-defining Oxford Handbook of Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2017 & 2020), which has emerged as a major reference work in the field for those engaged with citizenship from a philosophical, political, and legal perspective.
Her most recent book, The Shifting Border: Legal Cartographies of Migration and Mobility (Critical Power Series, Manchester University Press, 2020; shortlisted for the 2022 C.B. Macpherson Prize), has been described as “a remarkable book. Essential for understanding government responses to people on the move, Shachar’s vivid description, analytical precision, and reasoned persuasion combine to challenge conventional wisdom about ‘borders’ and how they work. The result: exceptional insights into how migration control can be more just. The Shifting Border offers an indispensable roadmap to immigration and refugee debates all around the world”.
Shachar is an Honorary Professor at Goethe University Frankfurt Faculty of Law and Normative Orders Research Centre where she leads the Transformations of Citizenship Research Group. She has held distinguished visiting professorships at Harvard, Stanford, and McGill, and has provided pro-bono consultation to judges, non-governmental organizations, the European Parliament, and the World Bank. Shachar’s research has influenced law and policymakers, inspired key academic debates, and has been recognized by national and international research excellence awards.
In 2014, she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC). In 2015, she became Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. In 2017, she was elected member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities (past famous members include the Brothers Grimm and Gauss the mathematician). In 2019, she was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, one of Europe’s most prestigious research awards, for her groundbreaking work on citizenship and the legal frameworks of accommodation in multicultural societies. In 2021, she was appointed the R.F. Harney Chair in Ethnic, Immigration, and Pluralism Studies. In 2023, she joined the University of California, Berkeley.
Education
J.S.D. (Doctor of the Science of Law), Yale Law School (1997)
LL.M. (Master of Laws), Yale Law School (1995)
LL.B. (Bachelor of Laws), Tel Aviv University (1993)
B.A. (Political Science), Tel Aviv University (1993)
Ayelet Shachar is not teaching any Law courses in Fall 2024.
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title |  Teaching Evaluations | Fall 2023 | 262.71 sec. 001 | Citizenship and Globalization | View Teaching Evaluation | 265.41 sec. 001 | Religion & Equality in a Diverse World | View Teaching Evaluation |
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