Author Katherine Franke

Katherine Franke directs the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia University as well as the Open University Project, which promotes scholarship and discussion of Israel/Palestine. She was awarded a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship, and is a leading scholar in the area of feminism, sexuality and race. Franke’s legal career began as a civil rights lawyer, first specializing in HIV discrimination cases and then race and sex cases more generally. In the last 25 years she has authored briefs in cases addressing HIV discrimination, forced sterilization, same-sex sexual harassment, gender stereotyping, and transgender discrimination in the U.S. Supreme Court and other lower courts. Franke is chair of the board of trustees of the Center for Constitutional Rights.