Civil rights advocate named Damon J. Keith distinguished visiting professor at Wayne Law
DETROIT - Bernadette Atuahene has been named the Damon J. Keith distinguished visiting professor at Wayne State University Law School for the 2017-18 academic year.
The Damon J. Keith distinguished visiting professor at Wayne Law appointment is sponsored by the law school's Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights, which promotes educational, economic and political power of underrepresented communities in urban settings.
"Professor Atuahene is a leading international scholar on issues of property, race and justice," said Professor Peter J. Hammer, director of Wayne Law's Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. "It is an honor to have her as the Damon J. Keith distinguished visiting professor."
Atuahene's regular appointment is at the American Bar Foundation and Chicago-Kent College of Law where she teaches Law, Policy and International Development; Property; Trusts and Estates; and International Business Transactions. For the 2017-18 academic year at Wayne Law she will teach a seminar on property and race; and Law, Policy and International Development.
She has been widely quoted on Detroit property tax foreclosures and her soon-to-be-published study, which questions the constitutionality of some of the tax foreclosures. In that capacity, she works closely with the Coalition to End Unconstitutional Tax Foreclosures: illegalforeclosures.org. She also wrote an op-ed for The New York Times on the matter, "Don't Let Detroit's Revival Rest on an Injustice" and appeared on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.
After law school, Atuahene went to South Africa as a Fulbright Scholar. She served as a judicial clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, working for Justices Madala and Ngcobo. She then practiced as an associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York, where she focused on sovereign debt and real estate transactions.
Atuahene is a graduate of Yale Law School. She earned her M.P.A. from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and her B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Bernadette Atuahene