Jamillah Bowman Williams,

Professor Jamillah Williams received her J.D. from Stanford Law School and her Ph.D. in Sociology from Stanford.

She is a legal scholar broadly interested in the nature of bias (implicit, explicit, and structural), and the capacity of law to reduce inequality and promote social change. More specifically, Dr. Williams uses quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the effectiveness of legal interventions and various organizational "debiasing" strategies designed to enhance equity and inclusion. For example, she has found that popular framing used to increase buy-in to equal opportunity initiatives, such as the “business case for diversity” can backfire and actually increase bias and impede workplace equity.

Her research has been featured by a range of scholarly journals and media outlets. Dr. Williams has served as the keynote speaker for several national and international conferences and frequently consults leaders in business, government, and higher education regarding their workplace practices. In 2022, she joined Harvard Business School, where she was named to the inaugural cohort of Visiting Faculty Fellows at the Institute for Business in Global Society (or "BiGS").

At Georgetown Law, Professor Williams teaches courses in Employment Discrimination, Employment Law, and Contemporary Bias and Law. She also serves as Faculty Director of the Georgetown Workers' Rights Institute and she has an affiliate appointment in the Georgetown University Department of Sociology. Before joining the faculty at Georgetown, Dr. Williams worked as an Associate in the Employment Law practice of Paul Hastings, LLP in Chicago, IL where she specialized in conducting privileged diagnostics of employment processes and advising employers on diversity/inclusion programs.