Ahmed White

Professor of Law and
Nicholas Rosenbaum Professor of Law Chair
Criminal Law, Labor and Employment Law, Forced Labor, Critical Legal Studies, Marxism and Law

401 UCB
2450 Kittredge Loop Drive
Wolf Law Building
Boulder, CO  80309-0401
Office: 463
Phone: (303) 735-0138
E-mail: ahmed.white@colorado.edu

Curriculum Vitae:  View (PDF format)

Educational Background:
J.D.   Yale University School of Law   1994  
B.A.   Southern University and A&M   1991   summa cum laude
Bio:
Ahmed White is the Nicholas Rosenbaum Professor of Law. Before arriving at the University of Colorado, he was a visitor at Northwestern University in 1999. He has also taught at Villanova Law School. Earlier in his career, Professor White's research focused heavily on the fate of rule of law norms and the rule of law concept in capitalist society, and on the role of criminal law and punishment as mechanisms of social control of the working class. More recently, Professor White's scholarship has taken a more definite historical turn. Much of his work concerns the history of law and labor relations from the early Twentieth Century through the New Deal period, as well as the viability of a functional system of labor rights in liberal society. He is one of the country's leading experts on the history of labor repression, which is a major subject of his two acclaimed books, The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America (Oakland: University of California, 2016) and Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers (Oakland, University of California, 2022). He is currently working on two new book projects, one about radical farmers in the 1930s and the other about sedition laws and communist unions.

Published Books

UNDER THE IRON HEEL: THE WOBBLIES AND THE CAPITALIST WAR ON RADICAL WORKERS, (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 2022).
THE LAST GREAT STRIKE: LITTLE STEEL, THE CIO, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LABOR RIGHTS IN NEW DEAL AMERICA, (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORINIA PRESS, 2016).

Articles

Law, Labor, and the Hard Edge of Progressivism: the Legal Repression of Radical Unionism and the American Labor Movement's Long Decline, 42 Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law 165 (2021).
The Crime of Radical Industrial Unionism, 31 Employee Responsibilities & Rights Journal 225-237 (2019).
Its Own Dubious Battle: The Impossible Defense of an Effective Right to Strike, 2018 Wisconsin L. Rev. 1665-1131 (2018).
My Co-Worker, My Enemy: Solidarity, Workplace Control, and the Class Politics of Title VII, 63 Buff. L. Rev. 1061 (2015).
Workers Disarmed: The Campaign Against Mass Picketing and the Dilemma of Liberal Labor Rights, 49 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 59 (2014).
Industrial Terrorism and the Unmaking of New Deal Labor Law, 11 Nev. L.J. 561 (2011).
The Depression Era Sit-Down Strikes and the Limits of Liberal Labor Law, 39 Seton Hall L. Rev. 1 (2010).
The Concept of "Less Eligibility" and the Social Function of Prison Violence in Class Society, 56 Buff. L. Rev. 737 (2008).
The Crime of Staging an Effective Strike and the Enduring Role of Criminal Law in Modern Labor Relations, l1 WORKING, USA 23 (peer reviewed) (2008).
The Crime of Economic Radicalism: Criminal Syndicalism Laws and the Industrial Workers of the World, 1917-1927, 85 Or. L. Rev. 649 (2006).
The Juridical Structure of Habitual Offender Laws and the Jurisprudence of Authoritarian Social Control, 37 U. Tol. L. Rev. 705 (2006).
Capitalism, Social Marginality, and the Rule of Law's Uncertain Fate in Modern Society, 37 Ariz. St. L.J. 759 (2005).
A Different Kind of Labor Law: Vagrancy Law and the Regulation of Harvest Labor, 75 U. Colo. L. Rev. 667 (2004).
Mutiny, Shipboard Strikes, and the Supreme Court's Subversion of New Deal Labor Law, 25 Berkeley Journal of Labor & Employment Law 275 (2004).
Rule of Law and the Limits of Criminal Justice: The Private Prison in Jurisprudential Perspective, 38 American Criminal Law Review 111 (2001).
Victims' Rights, Rule of Law, and the Threat to Liberal Jurisprudence, 87 Kentucky Law Journal 357 (1999).

Book Chapters

The Memorial Day Massacre, in THE OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN HISTORY, (2020).
Marxism and the Contradictions of Labour and Employment Law, in RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON LAW AND MARXISM, (2021).
The Open Shop Tested: The Great Steel Strike of 1919 in American Labor Struggles and Labor Law Histories (Ken Casebeer ed., Carolina Academic Press 2011).
The Duty to Obey: Sit-Down at Sea, or Mutiny, in American Labor Struggles and Labor Law Histories, pp. 303-320 (Ken Casebeer ed., Carolina Academic Press 2011) (reworking of the article, The Crime of Staging an Economic Radicalism).
Max Weber and the Uncertainties of Categorical Comparative Law, in Rethinking the Masters of Comparative Law (Annelise Riles ed.) (2001).

Book Reviews

Free Markets, Unfree Labor, 26 New Lab. Forum 91 (2017) (Reviewing Elizabeth Anderson et al., Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It) (Princeton 2017)).
Review of Stephen Epp-Koop, We're Going to Run This City: Winnipeg's Political Left After the General Strike, 14 Labor: Stud. In Working Class Hist. 105 (2016).
Review of Shirley A. Wiegand & Wayne A. Wiegand, Books on Trial: Red Scare in the Heartland, 19 Great Plains Research 138 (2009).

Essays

The Crime of Radical Industrial Unionism, 31 Employee Responsibilities & Rights Journal 225-237 (2019).
The Labor Movement and the Dilemma of Direct Confrontation, 29 Employ. Respon. & Rights J. 39 (2017).

Courses:

Spring 2024 Criminal Law LAWS 5503-802
Fall 2023 Labor Law LAWS 6511-801
Fall 2023 Seminar: Class and Law LAWS 8535-801
Spring 2022 Criminal Law LAWS 5503-803
Fall 2021 Labor Law LAWS 6511-801
Fall 2021 Seminar: Class and Law LAWS 8535-801
Spring 2021 Employment Law LAWS 6521-801
Fall 2020 Labor Law LAWS 6511-801
Fall 2020 Seminar: Class and Law LAWS 8535-801
Spring 2020 Criminal Law LAWS 5503-803
Fall 2019 Labor Law LAWS 6511-801
Fall 2019 Seminar: Class and Law LAWS 8535-801
Spring 2019 Criminal Law LAWS 5503-803
Fall 2018 Labor Law LAWS 6511-801
Fall 2018 Seminar: Class and Law LAWS 8535-801
Spring 2018 Criminal Law LAWS 5503-803
Spring 2017 Criminal Law LAWS 5503-803
Fall 2016 Labor Law LAWS 6511-001
Fall 2016 Seminar: Class and Law LAWS 8535-001
Fall 2015 Labor Law LAWS 6511-001
Fall 2015 Seminar: Class and Law LAWS 8535-001
Spring 2015 Criminal Law LAWS 5503-801
Fall 2014 Labor Law LAWS 6511-001
Fall 2014 Seminar: Class and Law LAWS 8535-001
Spring 2014 Criminal Law LAWS 5503-801
Spring 2014 Seminar: Class and Law LAWS 8535-001
Fall 2013 Labor Law LAWS 6511-001
Spring 2013 Seminar: Class and Law LAWS 8535-001
Fall 2012 Labor Law LAWS 6511-001