Joy Milligan studies the intersection of law and inequality, with a particular focus on race-based economic inequality. Her scholarship is interdisciplinary, drawing on social science theory and methods, and has been published in the Yale Law Journal, Virginia Law Review, UCLA Law Review, NYU Law Review, Annual Review of Law & Social Science, and the Journal of Legal Education. Her current work examines the legal and political struggles over federal administrators’ long-term role in extending racial segregation.
Before entering academia, Milligan practiced civil rights law at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where she was a Skadden Fellow, and clerked for the Hon. A. Wallace Tashima of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Milligan is a member of the state bars of California and New York. She graduated magna cum laude from New York University Law School, where she was a Furman Scholar and Fellow, and an articles editor of the NYU Law Review. She earned a M.P.A. from Princeton University and an A.B. in Social Studies, magna cum laude, from Harvard-Radcliffe. Before attending law school, Milligan spent several years founding a non-profit bicycle recycling project in the northwest Dominican Republic.
At Berkeley, Milligan teaches courses in Civil Procedure, Civil Rights & Anti-Discrimination Law, and Critical Theories of Law & Legal Education.
Education
A.B., Harvard-Radcliffe College (1998)
M.P.A., Princeton University (2003)
J.D., New York University School of Law (2006)
Ph.D., UC Berkeley (2018)
Joy E Milligan is not teaching any Law courses in Fall 2025.