Sherri Lee Keene

Professor Keene is an Associate Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, and the inaugural co-recipient of ALWD’s inaugural Diversity Award!

This award honors a person who has made significant accomplishments in the area of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) or has demonstrated a strong commitment to promoting DEI, including efforts to improve the status of historically underrepresented groups. ALWD created this award in furtherance of its continued commitment to contributing to a legal writing discipline that is equitable and inclusive. The meaningful inclusion of diverse voices and experiences is necessary for ALWD to succeed in its mission of improving legal education and the analytic, reasoning, and writing abilities of lawyers.

Professor Keene has a deep and awe-inspiring record of contributions on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.  She has engaged in leadership and hard work on DEI issues at her institutions and in the legal writing community.

Professor Keene has promoted ALWD's values of diversity, equity, and inclusion through her classroom work, publications, conference organizing and presentations, and mentorship of students. To give you a small sampling of Professor Keene’s impactful scholarship, we invite you to explore Professor Keene’s now-classic article Stories that Swim Upstream: Uncovering the Influence of Stereotypes and Stock Stories in Fourth Amendment Reasonable Suspicion Analysis, 76 Md. L. Rev. 747-769 (2017), which challenges judges to account for the impact of implicit racial bias on police officers’ assessment of citizens’ behavior. In the inaugural year of this award, ALWD is proud to acknowledge the work of Professor Keene and to thank her for such tremendous work on DEI efforts and issues, benefiting all of us.

Although we were not able to honor Professor Keene in person, we held a virtual celebration in conjunction with the virtual 2021 ALWD Biennial Conference.  Professor Keene was kind enough to share these photos.