The University of Colorado at Boulder Law School

Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty
Maxine Burkett

University of Colorado Law School
469 Wolf Law Building
401 UCB
Boulder, CO  80309-0401
Phone: (303) 492-3720
E-mail: maxine.burkett@colorado.edu

Curriculum Vitae:  View (PDF format)

Bio:
Maxine Burkett joined the University of Colorado Law School faculty in January 2006. Prior to her appointment, she attended Williams College and Exeter College, Oxford University. She received her law degree from Boalt Hall at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Burkett served as a law clerk with The Honorable Susan Illston of the United States District Court, Northern District of California, after completing her position as the first Public Interest Law Fellow at the Honolulu, Hawai'i law firm Davis Levin Livingston Grande. There she conducted, among other things, legal and policy research on Native Hawaiian land claims. Following her clerkship, she practiced in the private sector at Paul, Johnson, Park and Niles, a Honolulu firm specializing in commercial and real estate law.

Professor Burkett’s courses include Torts, Environmental Law, Race and American Law, and International Development. She has written in the area of Race, Reparations, and Environmental Justice. Currently, her work is in "Climate Justice," writing on the disparate impact of climate change on poor and of-color communities and the United States’ moral and legal obligation to these communities, nationally and internationally. Her March 2007 conference "The Climate of Environmental Justice," at the University of Colorado, brought together leading academics, activists, and legal practitioners in the Environmental Justice field to consider the emerging interplay between race, poverty, and global warming. Professor Burkett has presented her research on Climate Justice in the United States, West Africa, and the Caribbean.

Works In Progress

Articles

Just Solutions to Climate Change: A Climate Justice Proposal for a Domestic Clean Development Mechanism, 56 Buff. L. Rev. 169 (2008).

Reconciliation and Non-Repetition: A New Paradigm for African-American Reparations, 86 Or. L. Rev. (2007).

Reconciliation and Non-Repetition: A New Paradigm for African-American Reparations (2006). The contemporary paradigm for African-American reparations fundamentally fails to address what should be its most vital component. Of the three essential elements of a successful reparations campaign - apology, award, and non-repetition through reconciliation - the most vital is non-repetition. In past “successful” reparations campaigns, the offending parties have issued apologies and awards, but have neither challenged nor dismantled the attitudes or infrastructures from which wrongful acts emerged, leaving open the likelihood of wrongful acts occurring again. Any campaign that neglects the non-repetition element runs the risk of strengthening the status quo. In this article, Professor Burkett argues that in order for a reparations campaign to be a true success for African-Americans, it must include a non-repetition element. To do so, the reparations movement must embrace a reconciliation model that is forward-looking and concerned with the methods of deterring future bad acts for ultimate, complete, and successful repair. In the current discourse on African-American reparations, Professor Burkett argues, non-repetition through reconciliation is woefully underemphasized. The incorporation of the non-repetition element is particularly important in the American context. From the nation's earliest days, the American political and economic landscape has evolved in a particularly pernicious manner, creating and entrenching a racial and economic hierarchy that persistently subjugates African-Americans and other of-color and low-income communities. Professor Burkett argues that in this context a multi-racial, multi-ethnic and cross-class reconciliation model is vital to the success of the African-American campaign. This broad-based approach, the author maintains, is the only way to ensure non-repetition. abstract

Strategic Voting and African Americans: True Vote, True Representation, True Power for the Black Community, 8 Mich. J. Race & L. 425 (2003).

Popular Press

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