The Ambedkar Law Lectures is an annual community-wide two-lecture series supported by the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar endowment at Columbia Law School.

About the Ambedkar Law Lectures

Delivered by prominent scholars of public law and other students of politics, the lectures aim to further our understanding of justice, democracy, equality, development, and governance from historical, comparative, and philosophical perspectives.

The Ambedkar Law Lectures are named in honor of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, an influential Indian political thinker and anti-colonial activist who studied at Columbia University and played a central part in framing the Constitution of independent India.

The Ambedkar Law Lectures are chaired by Columbia Law School Professors Mala Chatterjee, Jamal Greene, and Madhav Khosla.

2024 Lectures

The 2024 Ambedkar Law Lectures will take place on Tuesday 24 September (JGH 104) and Wednesday 25 September (JGH 106) from 5.00-6.30 PM.  The lectures, titled Reading Fanon, will be delivered by Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah (NYU) and will focus on the writings of Frantz Fanon, one of the twentieth century’s most important theorists of colonialism, revolution, and freedom.

On each day, the lectures will have two commentators: Jeremy Kessler (Columbia Law School) and Aslı Ü. Bâli (Yale Law School) on 24th September, and Kaiama L. Glover (African American Studies, Yale University) and Michele Moody-Adams (Philosophy, Columbia University) on 25th September.