Emily M.S. Houh
Emily M.S. Houh
Gustavus Henry Wald Professor of the Law and Contracts | Co-founder, Nathaniel R. Jones Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice, College of Law
419 College of Law Building
Areas of Interest: Commercial Law, Contracts
About
Emily Houh, the Gustavus Henry Wald Professor of the Law and Contracts at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, has been teaching contracts, commercial law, and critical race theory since 2003 at UC Law, where she has twice won the Goldman Prize for Teaching Excellence and also serves as co-director of the College’s Nathaniel R. Jones Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice.
Prior to joining the faculty at UC Law, Professor Houh was an assistant professor of law (2000-2003) at the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University. A graduate of Brown University, Professor Houh earned her JD from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was a founding member and article editor of the Michigan Journal of Race & Law. After law school, Professor Houh served as law clerk to the Honorable Anna Diggs Taylor, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan, and then as a staff attorney with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago and later as a commercial litigation associate at Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone, PLC, in Detroit.
Much of Professor Houh’s past and current scholarship focuses on the interplay between contract law, critical race theory, and socioeconomic (in)equality. Additionally, her recent research with UC Law colleague Prof. Kristin Kalsem looks at how participatory action research methods can be used to engage in critical race/feminist praxis, by exploring the raced and gendered nature of the “fringe economy.”
Education
BA, Brown University
JD, University of Michigan
Courses Taught
- Contracts
- Critical Race Theory
- Payment Systems
- Property
- Sales
Scholarship
- Campus Activism, Academic Freedom, and the AAUP, ACADEME, Nov.-Dec., 2016, at 17.
- Critical Race Theory in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ACTION RESEARCH 215 (David Coghlan & Mary Brydon-Miller eds.) (2014).
- Contract Law as a Source of Antidiscrimination Law in Intergenerational Inequality: The Role of Race in Law, Markets, and Social Structures (Russell Sage Foundation, 2007)
- Sketches of A Redemptive Theory of Contract, 66 Hastings L.J. 951 (2015).
- Theorizing a Legal Participatory Action Research: Critical Race/Feminism and Participatory Action Research, 20 Qualitative Inquiry ___ (forthcoming Dec. 2014) (with Kristin Kalsem).
- It's Critical: Legal Participatory Action Research, 19 Mich. J. Race & L. 287 (2014) (with Kristin Kalsem).
- Cracking the Egg: Which Came First—Stigma or Affirmative Action?, 96 Cal. L. Rev. 1299 (2008) (with Angela Onwuachi-Willig & Mary Campbell)
- Still, at the Margins, 40 Law & Soc'y Rev. 481 (2006)
- Toward Praxis, 39 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 905 (2006) (symposium)
- Critical Race Realism: Re-Claiming the Antidiscrimination Principle through the Doctrine of Good Faith in Contract Law , 66 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 455 (2005)
- The Doctrine of Good Faith in Contract Law: A Nearly Empty Vessel?, 2005 Utah L. Rev. 1 (2005)
- Critical Interventions: Toward an Expansive Equality Approach to the Doctrine of Good Faith and Fair Dealing in Contract Law, 88 Cornell L. Rev. 1025 (2003)
- Book Review, Living "Off-Stage": The Semiotic Potential of Narrative in Paula Johnson's Inner Lives: Voices of African American Women in Prison, 16 Int'l J. Semiotics L.317 (2003)
- Panelist, “From Covenant to Contract: Contractarianism, Markets, and de-Sacralization of Legal Obligations,” 2017 Joseph T. McCullen Jr. Symposium on Catholic Social Thought and Law: Law & Religion Meets Law & Economics, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law, Villanova, PA, March 17, 2017.
- Panelist, “Contracts, Commercial, and Consumer Law in Action,” Association of American Law Schools 2017 Annual Meeting, Section on Commercial and Related Consumer Law and Contracts Joint Program, San Francisco, CA, January 6, 2017.
- Panelist, “Performing Theory in the Classroom: Critical Race Theory and Sam DuBose,” The Cincinnati Project 2ndAnnual Symposium,University of Cincinnati,Cincinnati, OH, February 26, 2016.
- Moderator, “The Empirics of Legal Interpretation,” Association of American Law Schools 2016 Annual Meeting, Section on Law and Interpretation Program, New York, NY, January 9, 2016.
- Plenary Panelist, “Navigating the Path to Tenure and Promotion (Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started,” Association of American Law Schools 2016 Annual Meeting, Workshop for Pretenured People of Color Law School Teachers, New York, NY, January 8, 2016; and Association of American Law Schools 2015 Mid-Year Meeting, Workshop for Pretenured People of Color Law School Teachers, Washington, DC, June 21-22, 2014.
- Plenary Speaker, “Successfully Navigating Relationships On and Off Campus,” Association of American Law Schools 2014 Mid-Year Meeting, Workshop for Pretenured People of Color Law School Teachers, Washington, DC, June 21-22, 2014.
- Plenary Speaker, “Scholarship Overview,” Association of American Law Schools 2013 Mid-Year Meeting, Workshop for Pretenured People of Color Law School Teachers, Washington, DC, June 22-23, 2013.
- Plenary Panelist, “Interest Convergence: Mapping Critical Race Studies,” Critical Race Studies at 10: Building Our Home, Sixth Annual Critical Race Studies Symposium, UCLA School of Law, Los Angeles, CA, March 7-8, 2013.
- Presentation, “Theorizing a Critical Legal Participatory Action Research Method,” Michigan State University College of Law, East Lansing, MI, March 20, 2013.
- Panelist, “Brick by Brick: Understanding Systems of Domination in the Core Curriculum,” ClassCrits IV: Criminalizing Economic Inequality, American University College of Law, Washington, DC, September 23-24, 2011.
- Panelist, “Social Formation and Legal Regimes,” 2011 Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association, San Francisco, CA, June 2-5, 2011.
- Chair and Discussant, “The Viability of Racial Categories in a ‘Post-Racial’ Era,” 2011 Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association, San Francisco, CA, June 2-5, 2011.
- Panelist, “(Un)Conscious Bias in Contract Law,” Sixth Annual International Conference on Contracts, Stetson University College of Law, Gulf Port, FL, February 18-19, 2011.
- Presentation, “A Redemptive Theory of Contract Law,” Chicago-Kent College of Law, Chicago, IL, February 22, 2011.
- Panelist, “Race and First-Year Courses: Contracts, Torts, and Civil Procedure,” Association of American Law Schools 2010 Mid-Year Meeting, Workshop on “post Racial” Civil Rights Law, Politics, and Legal Education: New and Old Color Lines in the Age of Obama, New York, NY, June 8-10, 2010.
- Presentation, “Action Research and Legal Scholarship,” The Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, May 3, 2010.
- Panelist, “Intersectionality in Action,” Intersectionality: Challenging Theory, Reframing Politics, Transforming Movements, Fourth Annual Critical Race Studies Symposium, UCLA School of Law, Los Angeles, CA, March 11-13, 2010.
- Presentation, “Contracting Identities: The Antisubordinating Potential of Contract Law,” CRT Workshop Series, UCLA School of Law, Los Angeles, CA, April 15, 2009.
Awards
- 2024 Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching
- 2022 Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching
- Co-Recipient of the Marian Spencer Award
- 2016 Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching
- 2012 Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching
- 2006 Goldman Prize for Excellence in Teaching