Professor Akbar received her B.A. from Barnard College and her J.D. the University of Michigan, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Michigan Law Review.

Amna A. Akbar is a preeminent scholar who writes and teaches about the theories and practices of social movements and social change, criminal law, policing, race, and inequality. Her groundbreaking research has appeared in prestigious legal and social science journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Harvard Law Review Forum, California Law Review, and NOMOS. She serves on the editorial board of the Law and Political Economy Blog and regularly writes for popular audiences in outlets like The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and N+1. 

In 2021, Akbar was named a Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation and Group Health Foundation. She also previously served as a fellow in the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University. During the 2023-2024 academic year, Akbar is a visiting professor at Harvard Law School (spring) and University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law (fall). She clerked for Judge Gerard E. Lynch on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and worked as a staff attorney at Queens Legal Service Corp. in a community-based battered women’s project. 

Find her official OSU profile here.