Catherine Smith is an Associate Professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and is currently a Visiting Scholar at UCLA Law School’s Williams Institute.

After graduating from the University of South Carolina School of Law, Professor Smith clerked for the late Chief Judge Henry A. Politz of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and for U.S. Magistrate Judge William M. Catoe Jr. She then served as a legal fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Before joining the faculty at the University of Denver, Professor Smith was an Assistant Professor at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law from 2000 to 2004.

Professor Smith teaches Torts, Advanced Torts, and Employment Discrimination. Her research interests include torts, civil rights law, and critical race theory. Her articles have been published in Wisconsin Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, and Rutgers Law Review, and Connecticut Law Review. Professor Smith’s current work in progress is entitled “Straight Scrutiny,” which explores how state and federal courts reinforce heterosexism by ignoring the racial and class diversity of the LGBT community in order to deny a “politically powerful minority” heightened scrutiny in equal protection law.

Featured Publications

• Queer as Black Folk?, 2007 Wis. L. Rev.
• Peace and Protest: Can city officials force protesters to identify themselves by name?, INTELLIGENCE REPORT, No. 121, Spring 2006.
• The Group Dangers of Race-Based Conspiracies, 59 Rutgers Law Review 55 (2006)
• Citizens' Unrest: In Arizona, a county prosecutor opens the door for vigilante justice, INTELLIGENCE REPORT, No. 120, Winter 2005.
• (Un)masking Race-Based Intra-Corporate Conspiracies Under the Ku Klux Klan Act, 11 Va. J. Soc. Pol'y & L. 129 (2004)