Khiara M. Bridges is a professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law. She has written many articles concerning race, class, reproductive rights, and the intersection of the three. Her scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the California Law Review, the NYU Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review, among others. She is also the author of three books: Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization (2011), The Poverty of Privacy Rights (2017), and Critical Race Theory: A Primer (2019). She is a coeditor of a reproductive justice book series that is published under the imprint of the University of California Press.
She graduated as valedictorian from Spelman College, receiving her degree in three years. She received her J.D. from Columbia Law School and her Ph.D., with distinction, from Columbia University’s Department of Anthropology. While in law school, she was a teaching assistant for the former dean, David Leebron (Torts), as well as for the late E. Allan Farnsworth (Contracts). She was a member of the Columbia Law Review and a Kent Scholar. She speaks fluent Spanish and basic Arabic, and she is a classically trained ballet dancer.
Education
B.A., summa cum laude, Spelman College
J.D., Columbia Law School
Ph.D., with distinction, Columbia University
Khiara M Bridges is teaching the following courses in Spring 2026:
• 230 sec. 001 - Criminal Law
• 294.59 sec. 001 - Critical Race Theory
Gen Z Doulas Are Transforming Black Birthing Care
“What I’ve observed is an increase in awareness about the efficacy of doulas,” says Berkeley Law Professor Khiara M. Bridges. “Training programs have proliferated. Students, activists, people who otherwise might not have entered this field are becoming doulas so they can help save lives, or at least make childbirth more empowering instead of another site of degradation.”
‘Race-neutral’ legal challenges for voting rights, higher ed
Professor Khiara M. Bridges discusses the Supreme Court’s questioning whether to keep Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — which prohibits discrimination in voting practices and procedures.
Is this a medical marvel or horror movie? You tell me.
Professor Khiara M. Bridges joins NPR’s It’s Been A Minute to discuss the the case of Adriana Smith’s pregnancy in which after being declared brain dead, a Georgia hospital kept her on life support without her family’s consent because of the state’s abortion laws
Brain-Dead Georgia Woman Is Taken Off Life Support After Delivering Baby
“It is not clear what exactly the law prescribes and permits in cases like this,” Khiara M. Bridges, a University of California, Berkeley law professor, told HuffPost. “In an abundance of caution, risk-averse doctors and hospital counsel will do exactly what they did in Smith’s case.”
GOP Candidate Says Number of Women on Birth Control ‘Concerning’
“This view of women and women’s roles is precisely what feminists reacted against in the mid-19th century, and then again in the 1960s and 1970s,” said Professor Khiara M. Bridges.
UC Berkeley Law Rankings Hit High Marks for Major Fields and Scholarly Impact of Standout Professors
UC Berkeley Law is the top public law school in the United States — and sixth in the world — according to Times Higher Education’s new rankings, and two recent studies of scholarly impact also place its faculty as the best among public institutions.
Gender Discrimination and Harassment Law Conference to Explore Local, National, and Global Developments
Presented by the school’s Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law, the event draws lawyers and activists in person and virtually to continue efforts to turn the revelations sparked by the #MeToo movement into systemic change.
Are California’s Death Penalty Laws Applied in Racially Discriminatory Ways, Violating the State Constitution?
Two students from UC Berkeley Law’s Death Penalty Clinic fuel an amicus brief highlighting the importance of state constitutional independence and California’s deep record of discrimination in administering capital punishment.
Is abortion settled or at risk in WA state ahead of the 2024 elections? Here’s what we found
Professor Khiara Bridges discusses abortion law in Washington state.
CAN INFORMED CONSENT SOLVE AI BIAS?
Professor Khiara Bridges’ article Race in the Machine: Racial Disparities in Health and Medical AI is reviewed.
The first over-the-counter birth control pill becomes available. Where is it sold?
“You can avoid the necessity of consulting with a physician or getting a physical examination by a healthcare provider, and you can just order it delivered to your home and so that expands access,” said Khiara M. Bridges, a professor of law at UC Berkeley who studies reproductive rights.
California Law Review Symposium Confronts Equality Concerns in Supreme Court Jurisprudence
Legal scholars from across the country unpacked recent decisions they say depart from historical precedent and jeopardize the rights of minorities and other vulnerable groups.
Dr. Khiara Bridges and the Abundant Birth Project Lawsuit
Professor Khiara Bridges joins hosts Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay to discuss conservative backlash to a San Francisco maternal health program for Black women.
Dancers of All Sizes Hope Change Follows a Discrimination Ban
Discrimination cases are generally difficult to argue in court. “You need a smoking gun,” said Khiara M. Bridges, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former professional dancer. The array of aesthetic judgments involved in dance casting and hiring scenarios can make them especially difficult to parse.
Could the Texas couple who sought a court order to get an abortion face legal risks after out-of-state travel?
Professor Khiara M. Bridges discusses a legal challenge to Texas abortion bans.
Backlash to affirmative action hits pioneering maternal health program for Black women
Professor Khiara M.Bridges also drew another distinction between the role of race in college admissions and the role of race in health disparities. “If you don’t get into Harvard, there’s always Princeton or Columbia or Cornell,” she said. “Maternal death — the stakes are a little bit higher.”
Diversity tussle sparks fears over women’s progress in the workplace
“If companies are going to be risk-averse going forward, then all of the groups that have benefited from DEI programmes are going to be harmed,” warns Khiara M. Bridges, a professor at UC Berkeley law school.
O impacto trazido pela primeira juíza negra no Supremo dos EUA
Professor Khiara M. Bridges discusses the impact Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has had on the Supreme Court.
A men’s movement takes reins in a nationwide quest to end abortion
“It’s kind of like a zero sum type of game in the sense that the more rights you give to fetuses, the fewer rights you give to the people that actually gestate them,” said Professor Khiara M. Bridges.
How the US Supreme Court Became an Arm of the Republican Party
The court is making decisions based on the GOP platform, not the Constitution, says Professor Khiara M. Bridges.