Jacob K. Javits Professorship
The Jacob K. Javits Professorship at NYU honors the memory and accomplishments of the four-term US Republican Senator and alumnus of the NYU School of Law, the late Honorable Jacob K. Javits.
Established in 2008, with generous support from The Marian B. and Jacob K. Javits Foundation, the Professorship perpetuates the values and intellectual integrity of the Senator, and is awarded to a distinguished individual who shares those values as an academic, lawyer, policymaker, journalist, historian, philosopher, or former elected official. Their work may focus on an issue close to Senator Javits’s interests including:
- health
- civil rights
- labor
- foreign policy
- rights of individuals with disabilities
- education
- fairness in employment
- economic security for working Americans
Recent Awardee
2022 Jacob K. Javits Professor
Vasuki Nesiah
Vasuki Nesiah teaches human rights, legal and social theory at NYU Gallatin, where she is also faculty director of the Gallatin Global Fellowship in Human Rights. She has published on the history and politics of human rights, humanitarianism, international criminal law, reparations, global feminisms and decolonization. Nesiah was awarded the Gallatin Distinguished Teacher Award in 2021, and the NYU Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Faculty Award in 2020. Her current book projects include International Conflict Feminism and Reading the Ruins: Colonialism, Slavery and International Law.
2022 Jacob K. Javits Professorship Lecture
Race Before the Law: Gatekeeping at the Ballot Box