IRVINE, Calif. (Feb. 6, 2023) — The University of California, Irvine School of Law (UCI Law) is proud to announce Professors Mario L. Barnes and Kaaryn Gustafson have been honored by the American Bar Foundation Fellows with the prestigious 2023 Outstanding Scholar Award. Presented to them at the American Bar Foundation (ABF) banquet at the ABA mid-year meeting on Saturday, February 4, 2023 in New Orleans, the award recognizes Professors Barnes and Gustafson’s decades-long research, scholarship and leadership in many areas of the law, including the interdisciplinary legal and social implications of race, ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic inequality.
Awarded annually since 1957, the Outstanding Scholar Award is given by the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation to legal professionals engaged in outstanding scholarship in the law or government. The ABF Fellows is a global honorary society of leading professionals whose public and private careers have demonstrated outstanding dedication to the highest principles of the legal profession and to the welfare of their communities.
Previous recipients of the award include UCI Law Professor Carrie Menkel-Meadow (2018), as well as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard Law School; Lawrence M. Friedman, Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law, Stanford Law School; Richard Posner, former Circuit Judge, 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Erwin Griswold, Solicitor General of the United States (1967 – 73) and former dean, Harvard Law School; and Archibald Cox, Solicitor General of the United States (1961 – 65). For a full list of previous winners, click here.
The ABF Outstanding Scholar Award is among the nation’s highest honors for scholarship in law or government, and we’re incredibly proud that now three UCI Law professors have been honored as recipients.
– Dean Austen Parrish
“It is with tremendous gratitude that I receive this recognition from the American Bar Foundation,” said Mario Barnes. “Being recognized alongside Professor Gustafson, a longtime friend and colleague whose work I admire greatly, makes the honor even more special. As an ABF Fellow and former Visiting Scholar, the organization’s impeccable faculty and innovative interdisciplinary research studies have significantly impacted my scholarship. When I look at the incredibly talented list of prior awardees, receiving this award encourages me to redouble my efforts to produce law and inequality scholarship that is built upon sociolegal research and steeped in critical perspectives.”
“I am humbled and sincerely honored be recognized by the American Bar Foundation,” said Kaaryn Gustafson. “The scholars affiliated with the ABF tend to be those building strong bridges across disciplinary divides and delving deeply into important questions about law. I feel fortunate to be part of this part of this community.”
“This is tremendous and well-deserved recognition for Professor Barnes and Professor Gustafson,” said UCI Law Dean Austen Parrish. “The ABF Outstanding Scholar Award is among the nation’s highest honors for scholarship in law or government, and we’re incredibly proud that now three UCI Law professors have been honored as recipients. UCI Law’s commitment to leading interdisciplinary scholarship is a core part and a hallmark of our academic identity. It’s an honor for Professor Barnes’ and Professor Gustafson’s names to be added to the long list of path-breaking scholars that the ABF has recognized.”
About Professor Mario Barnes
Professor Barnes returned to UCI Law in spring 2022 after serving as Dean at University of Washington School of Law from 2018 to 2021. At UCI Law, Barnes taught the inaugural class in 2009 and was instrumental in developing the Law School’s curriculum and sense of community. He helped launch the Center on Law, Equality and Race (CLEAR), which he co-directs now with Professor Gustafson. Barnes is a nationally recognized scholar for his research on the legal and social implications of race and gender, primarily in the areas of employment, education, criminal and military law. He is one of the leaders and organizers within the school of academics seeking to build stronger connections between empirical studies and Critical Race Theory. He writes and teaches in the areas of criminal law, constitutional law, national security law, and race and the law.
Barnes earned both a bachelor’s degree and a J.D. from University of California, Berkeley, and an LL.M. from the University of Wisconsin. He was founder, Managing Editor and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the African-American Law & Policy Report (now Berkeley Journal of African-American Law and Policy).
Barnes is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, an elected member of the American Law Institute, and a Distinguished Fellow of the National Institute of Military Justice. He has served elected terms as trustee and Treasurer of the Law & Society Association. He received the AALS Ferguson Award in 2015, and was honored with the AALS Derrick A. Bell, Jr. Award in 2008.
About Professor Kaaryn Gustafson
Professor Gustafson joined UCI Law in 2014 from University of Connecticut School of Law. She is the Co-Director (with Mario Barnes) of the Center on Law, Equality and Race, and the Associate Dean of Academic Community Engagement. Professor Gustafson’s scholarly work is interdisciplinary. Her best-known research focuses on the creeping administrative overlap between the welfare and criminal justice systems, as well as the experiences of those individuals and families caught in those systems. Her current research explores the role of law in crafting categories of racial difference and maintaining persistent racial inequality in the United States.
Gustafson has recently developed new courses as part of UCI Law’s curriculum on race and indigeneity. She is of one of five inaugural campus-wide UCI Inclusive Excellence Term Chair Professors.
Gustafson earned an A.B. in Sociology from Harvard University, a J.D. from University of California, Berkeley School of Law and a Ph.D. in Jurisprudence & Social Policy from University of California, Berkeley. Her book “Cheating Welfare: Public Assistance and the Criminalization of Poverty” was awarded the Law & Society Association’s Herbert Jacob Book Prize (2012) and she was the recipient of the AALS Derrick A. Bell, Jr. Award (2009). Gustafson is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and previously served as a trustee and as Secretary for the Law & Society Association.
About the University of California, Irvine School of Law
The University of California, Irvine School of Law is a top, visionary law school that provides an innovative and comprehensive curriculum, prioritizes public service, and demonstrates a commitment to diversity within the legal profession. UCI Law students have completed more than 135,000 hours of pro bono work since 2009. Forty-eight percent of UCI Law’s J.D. graduates are people of color. At UCI Law, we are driven to improve our local, national, and global communities by grappling with important issues as scholars, as practitioners, and as teachers who are preparing the next generation of leaders. The collaborative and interdisciplinary community at UCI Law includes extraordinary students, world-renowned faculty, dedicated staff, engaged alumni and enthusiastic supporters. More information on UCI Law is available here. Please follow us on Twitter @UCILaw, Facebook @UCIrvineLaw and Instagram @ucilaw.
Media Contact:
Colleen Taricani
Assistant Dean for Communications
ctaricani@law.uci.edu