Cedric Merlin Powell

Broady Endowed Chair & Visiting Professor of Law

Cedric Merlin Powell is the Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs Professor of Law, and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law. Professor Powell received his B.A. with Honors in Politics from Oberlin College and his J.D. from New York University School of Law where he served as Managing Editor of the N.Y.U Review of Law & Social Change.  Professor Powell served as law clerk to the Honorable Julia Cooper Mack of the D.C. Court of Appeals; he was Karpatkin Fellow in the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union; and he practiced as a litigation associate with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York.  Professor Powell’s articles have appeared in the Harvard BlackLetter Law Journal, Harvard Journal on Racial & Ethnic Justice, Howard Law Journal, University of Miami Law Review, Saint Louis University Public Law Review, Washington University Journal of Law & Policy, and the Utah Law Review, among others.  Professor Powell’s book Post-Racial Constitutionalism and the Roberts Court: Rhetorical Neutrality and the Perpetuation of Inequality is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. He is also co-editor of RACIAL JUSTICE IN AMERICAN LAND USE (Craig Anthony Arnold, Cedric Merlin Powell, Laura Rothstein, and Cate Fosl, Co-Editors) (forthcoming Cambridge University Press).

Professor Powell was awarded the Justice William E. McAnulty, Jr., Trailblazer Award by the Louisville Bar Association.  He is the first law professor to be so honored. Professor Powell was awarded the 2018 University Distinguished Faculty Service Award for Career Exemplary Service. He was named Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs Professor of Law, and Outstanding Faculty Member in 2019. In 2021, he was awarded the University Distinguished Teaching Award.