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 not teaching any Law courses in Fall 2025.
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title | Fall 2024 | 212.3 sec. 001 | Critical Race Theory | 230 sec. 004 | Criminal Law | Spring 2024 | 230 sec. 001 | Criminal Law |
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Affirmative Action Has Been Banned in College Admissions. Here’s How Corporate Leaders Can Respond
Professor Khiara M. Bridges discusses the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action.
The State of Bodily Autonomy
Professor of Law Khiara M. Bridges joins hosts Lori Adelman and Leila Durabi for a conversation about reproductive rights.
Death and grief in ‘Succession’; plus, privacy and the abortion pill
Host Brittany Luse is joined by UC Berkeley Law professor Khiara M. Bridges to connect the dots between the recent legal battles over the abortion pill mifepristone and our constitutional right to privacy.
The Abortion Pill Legal Standoff Endangers Access to All Drugs
“We had accepted that federal law would preempt state law, that it would be preposterous that one federal judge in one district in Texas—or in any other state—would be able to affect the availability of a drug that had had FDA approval for 20 years,” says Khiara M. Bridges, a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. “Now the things that we thought we knew about the relationship between federal law and state law, and the FDA’s ability to regulate, have been called into question.”
What the Supreme Court’s decision in the legal fight over abortion pills means for access to mifepristone
“It sort of puts the fire under all courts in the country to resolve the conflict as soon as possible,” said Professor Khiara M. Bridges.
Oklahoma must allow abortion if mother’s life is threatened, court rules
“The ruling means pregnant people no longer have to wait until “their life is literally on the line” to legally qualify for an abortion,” said Khiara M. Bridges, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. “But it’s a narrow win because people trying to avoid a potentially life-threatening pregnancy make up a small proportion of those seeking abortions.”
When Forced Birth Becomes a Banality
Professor of Law Khiara M. Bridges joins host Lindsay Langholz for a conversation about forced birth in America and what it means for pregnant people, families, and the law when forced birth becomes a banality.
‘Be the Change’: Khiara M. Bridges on claiming her voice as a prominent Black woman
Host Savala Nolan, director of Berkeley Law’s Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, interviews professor Khiara M. Bridges, a powerful public intellectual who speaks and writes about race, class, reproductive justice and the intersection of the three.
Class-Based Affirmative Action: What Is It and How Would It Work?
“I don’t want my critique of class-based affirmative action to be understood as a critique of poor people,” Khiara M. Bridges, a law professor at UC Berkeley School of Law tells Teen Vogue. “That being said, I do not like the narrative of class-based affirmative action, where it tells a story that race or racial problems are over… and that we are living in a world where race doesn’t matter, only class does.”
When Did “Woke” Lose Its Meaning & How Do We Get It Back?
“Slang amongst Black people is a love language and I am frustrated when that slang becomes appropriated and used by others and the meaning morphs,” said Khiara M. Bridges, author and professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law. “There’s something really sinister about this term not only being taken from us but also deployed against us. It’s a double violation.”
Dobbs and Judges, Summing Up 2022
Berkeley Law Professor Khiara M. Bridges discusses the biggest takeaways from 2022 and what to expect in 2023.
Rare Feat: Berkeley Law Students Present Their Research at Major International Forum
Selected to discuss their work at the recent event in Miami, where the vast majority of presenters were faculty scholars, “is a big deal,” says Professor Katerina Linos.
Professor Khiara M. Bridges Pens Harvard Law Review Foreword on ‘Race in the Roberts Court’
The current U.S. Supreme Court majority, Bridges argues, only remedies racism against people of color when it encounters something that resembles the pre-civil rights era, from poll taxes to eugenics.
Standing Firm: How Berkeley Law Faculty and Students are Stepping Up to Advance and Defend Basic Rights
With basic rights in peril at home and around the world, the law school community is answering the call.
Jay Caspian Kang and Khiara Bridges headline Berkeleyside’s first Idea Makers evening
UC Berkeley law professor Khiara Bridges was a guest speaker at the inaugural Berkeleyside Idea Makers event where she spoke about the movement for reproductive justice and the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson.
Living in a Post-Roe America with Khiara Bridges
UC Berkeley law professor Khiara Bridges discusses what’s at stake for Black communities following the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
The Supreme Court Is Blowing Up Law School, Too
“The court is not going to save us. It is going to let Trump do whatever he wants to do. And it’s going to help him get away with it,” said Professor Khiara M. Bridges in response to the court’s decision on Trump v. Hawaii.
A Little Bit Pregnant
Professor Khiara M. Bridges discusses the “period pill.”
Khiara M. Bridges Testifies Before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee
On July 12, Professor Khiara M. Bridges testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee about the fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. Bridges’ exchanges with several senators, particularly Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, drew extensive media coverage.
Explainer: What’s Next for Abortion Pills After the Fall of Roe
“It’s up to states, really, as to how they want to go about making abortion unacceptable,” Professor Khiara M. Bridges says, predicting the argument over whether the federal government can protect access to abortion pills, particularly mifepristone, “a long-term battle.”