Tomiko Brown-Nagin

Tomiko Brown-Nagin is dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, one of the world’s leading centers for interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, and professions. She is also the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, a professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences and a distinguished scholar in the fields of law and history.

Brown-Nagin is a legal historian and an expert in constitutional law whose scholarship has been recognized as groundbreaking. Her most recent book, Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality (Pantheon, 2022), which explores the life and times of the pathbreaking lawyer, politician, and judge garnered widespread praise. The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, the Smithsonian Magazine, and Time all cited it as one of the Best Books of 2022. Civil Rights Queen won several prizes, including the 2023 Order of the Coif Book Award, the 2023 Darlene Clark Hine Award, and the 2023 Lillian Smith Book Award. Her previous book, Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement (Oxford University Press, 2011), an examination of dissent in the legal and social history of the Civil Rights Movement, also won numerous prizes, including a 2012 Bancroft Prize in American History, the Liberty Legacy Prize of the Organization of American Historians, and the John Phillip Reid Book Award by the American Society of Legal History, among other honors. She co-edited (with Gerald Neuman) the 2015 book, Reconsidering the Insular Cases (Harvard University Press, 2015); the essay collection explored the legacy of the landmark cases that defined the constitutional status of Puerto Rico and other American territories. Brown-Nagin’s current book project is a historical memoir that focuses on her community of origin; it examines interracial family and kinship relationships and law’s regulation of them, both before and after the Civil War.

Brown-Nagin’s scholarship and commentary on the Supreme Court’s equal protection jurisprudence, civil rights law and history, education reform, and academic freedom have been published in the Boston Globe, Chronicle of Higher Education, the New York Times, POLITICO Magazine, and the Washington Post, among other publications. She also is a frequent media commentator and public speaker about her areas of expertise.

Brown-Nagin has served as dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute since 2018. During her tenure, she has helped recruit excellent faculty to Harvard, expanded Radcliffe’s renowned fellowship program to academics and artists from a broad array of institutions, and more than doubled the number of Harvard students who engage with Radcliffe through interdisciplinary research, courses, and activities.

Prior to becoming dean at Radcliffe, Brown-Nagin held leadership roles at Harvard Law School. She served as the faculty director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute (2017-2019) and as co-director of the Law and History program (2013-2018).

In addition to these leadership roles at Radcliffe and Harvard Law School, Brown-Nagin has helmed important University-wide endeavors. From 2019-2022, Brown-Nagin chaired the Presidential Committee on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery (Harvard University Press, 2022). She led the highly visible University-wide initiative and co-authored the Committee’s landmark report detailing the University’s direct, financial, and intellectual ties to slavery. Lauded in the Washington Post and in The New York Review of Books for its scholarly breadth and depth, the report was nominated for several academic prizes.

In 2024, Brown-Nagin took on a leadership role in another major University-wide initiative as co-chair of Harvard’s Working Group on Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue. Established by the President and Provost, the group was tasked with assessing the University’s climate for teaching and learning. Brown-Nagin led a team of faculty from across the University, engaged with faculty, students, and alumni from all Harvard schools, authored the group’s well-received report, and presented its findings to media. She continues to co-lead this initiative, now focused on implementing the group’s recommendations to foster a climate that supports the free exchange of ideas at Harvard.

Prior to entering academia, Brown-Nagin worked as an associate in the litigation department of a major New York City law firm and served as a judicial clerk on both the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court. She earned a law degree from Yale Law School, a doctorate in history from Duke University, and a Bachelor of Arts in history from Furman University.

Brown-Nagin’s executive assistant, Laura Gerhard, can be reached at laura_gerhard@radcliffe.harvard.edu.