Dr. Deborah Dinner

Biography

Deborah Dinner is a legal historian whose research examines work, gender, capitalism, and the welfare state in the twentieth-century United States. Her scholarship explores the interaction between social movements, legal and economic thought, political culture, and legal change. She has a diverse range of courses and curricular interests including Property, Employment Discrimination, Employment Law, Family Law, Gender & Law, and Social Movements. Dinner is the author of 'Feminism Lost: Work, Care, Law, 1964-1996', which analyzes legal and political debates surrounding sex equality, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and welfare reform legislation of 1996. This work argues that business opposition and judicial conservatism narrowed feminists' goals to expand welfare state supports for care. Her articles published in leading journals such as the Yale Law Journal and Virginia Law Review delve into various topics including feminist legal activism, childcare, pregnancy discrimination, and gender in public accommodations. She is currently working on a new project titled 'Nation Risk: Private Insurance Law Modern America', investigating the tension between antidiscrimination principles and actuarial logic. Dinner earned her J.D. and Ph.D. in history from Yale University and has previously taught at Washington University St. Louis School of Law and Emory University School of Law.

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