HBLSA interviewed 2018-2019 Visiting Professors Raymond Atuguba and Guy-Uriel Charles
Profile: Professor Raymond Atuguba (LLM ’00, SJD ’04)
Fall 2018 | By Jessica Sawadogo
Professor Raymond Akongburo Atuguba joins Harvard Law School as the Henry J. Steiner Visiting Professor in Human Rights for the 2018–2019 school year. He received both his Master of Laws (LL.M) and Doctor of Juridical Sciences (SJD) Degrees from Harvard Law School in 2000 and 2004. He is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Law, University of Ghana, where he has taught since 2002.
This year, Professor Atuguba will lead three classes: Policy, Law and Development in Africa and the Human Rights and Community Lawyering Seminar in Fall 2018, and Remake the World: Public International Law Seminar (Spring 2019).
When asked about his relationship to Harvard and his return to the school:
“I did my LLM and SJD here from 1999 to 2004. Whilst a student at Harvard, I was a member of BLSA and helped form the Harvard Africa Law Association (HALA) in 2001. I have maintained contact with my SJD supervisors (Lucie White, Duncan Kennedy, Henry Steiner) for almost 2 decades since I left here. I have also remained in contact with successive people at the HLS Human Rights Program and the University’s Center for African Studies. They and Prof. Alford, the Vice Dean for graduate studies, encouraged me to come here as a visiting professor for a year.
I have been surprised at the number of professors and staff who have been here all these twenty years and are still here. Some of the library staff I worked with almost 20 years ago are still here! I loved talking to the workers who clean up at night whilst I was here; and I still do that. I purposively work late at times just to get to talk to some of them at night. Harvard is a great place to be. Let’s keep it that way.”
Read Professor Atuguba’s faculty profile here.
Profile: Professor Guy-Uriel Charles
Fall 2018 | By Andrew Gonzales
Professor Guy-Uriel Charles joins Harvard Law as the Bennett Boskey Visiting Professor of Law for the 2018-2019 year.
This fall, he is teaching first-year Civil Procedure, and in the spring semester he will teach both seminar called Race and Federalism as a well as a course titled Law and Racial Justice. During Winter Term 2018, Professor Charles also taught a class on election law.
Currently, he is working on a book, with Professor Luis-Fuentes-Rohwer of University of Indiana Law School, Bloomington, on the future of the Voting Rights Act and voting rights policy. Generally, his scholarship generally falls into two categories; the first being law, voting, elections, and politics, and the second being racial justice and racial equality.
Professor Charles says: “I am gratified by the reception that I have received by the students, especially by BLSA students and the students of color. I have enjoyed getting to know these students. These students are of course brilliant. But they are also kind, compassionate, passionate, inspirational, and discerning.”
“As a black law professor, I believe that I have an obligation to make sure that opportunities continue to be available to all and I am inspired by the work of previous academics such as Professors Guinier and Charles Ogletree.”
We are grateful to have Professor Charles as he has already been an involved and dynamic contribution to the Harvard Law community.
Read Professor Charles’ faculty profile here.
Wondering who else is on campus? View the faculty directory here.