Michele Landis Dauber

A law professor and a sociologist, Michele Landis Dauber has written highly original historical and sociological studies focusing on the history of social provision and the US welfare state. Her first book, The Sympathetic State (2013 University of Chicago Press) received numerous distinguished book awards and prizes including from the American Historical Association, the American Sociological Association, the American Political Science Association, the American Society for Legal History, and the Law and Society Association.

Professor Dauber has received numerous grants for her research including from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is currently working on a project about the history of resettlement and relocation following catastrophes.

Professor Dauber is the recipient of the 2006 Walter J. Gores Award, Stanford University’s highest teaching honor. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty in 2001, Professor Dauber was a clerk to Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (1998-99) and a doctoral fellow at the American Bar Foundation (1999-2001).

From 2011-13, Professor Dauber co-chaired the Board on Judicial Affairs and helped to lead the process that revised Stanford’s policy on sexual assault. She is a nationally-respected advocate for improving college and university policies on sexual assault in order to increase compliance with Title IX.

In 2016, Professor Dauber became the Chair of the Committee to Recall Judge Persky, and is helping to lead the campaign to recall the judge who sentenced Brock Turner, a former Stanford student found guilty of three serious felony sex crimes to only 6 months in county jail (rather than the 2 year minimum sentence prescribed by law). Professor Dauber has appeared in hundreds of media stories on the subject of campus rape, including in The Atlantic, the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post as well as on NPR, several local NPR affiliates, CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, Democracy Now, and a host of other outlets.