Kimberly Jade Norwood, JD, professor of law, in the School of Law, and of African and African-American Studies, in Arts & Sciences, at Washington University in St. Louis, was appointed to the newly formed Supreme Court Municipal Division Work Group to review the state’s municipal court system.
Norwood’s research and teaching focus on black identity issues, colorism, and the intersection of race, class, and public education in America. Her book, published in 2013 by Routledge, is “Color Matters: Skin Tone Bias & the Myth of a Post-Racial America.”
She served as the university’s keynote speaker at the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in January 2015. Her next book, “Ferguson Fault Lines: Social and Legal Reverberations,” is to be published by the end of 2015.
The reform panel is charged with reviewing practices in municipal courts throughout the state and recommending improvements to the system. The panel is to file its interim report by Sept. 1 and its final report by Dec. 1. Two former chief justices of the Missouri Supreme Court co-chair the work group.
For more on the municipal court group, visit the Supreme Court website.