Linda Sheryl Greene

1855 Professor and MSU Foundation Professor of Law

Law College Building
648 N. Shaw Lane Rm 437
East Lansing, MI 48824-1300
517-432-6862
linda.sheryl.greene@law.msu.edu

Detailed Biography (PDF)

Linda Sheryl Greene is the Michigan State University 1855 Professor and Michigan State University Foundation Professor of Law. Previously, she served as Dean and MSU Foundation Professor of Law at the Michigan State University College of Law from June 2021-January 2024.

Greene’s professional background is multifaceted. She received her B.A. in Health Education from California State University-Long Beach, her J.D. from the University of California-Berkeley, and a Certificate in Public International Law from The Hague Academy of International Law. She was a civil rights and constitutional lawyer at Legal Defense Fund in New York, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, and the United States Senate Judiciary Committee where she also advised on federal judicial confirmations including the five United States Supreme Court nominations. She is a member of the California Bar, and since 1991 an elected member of The American Law Institute which inducted her as a life member in 2016.

Her teaching and academic scholarship focus on Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure, Legislation, Civil Rights, and Sports Law. She was a tenured Professor at the University of Oregon, at the University Wisconsin Madison Law School, the first Black Women to teach at Harvard Law, a visiting professor at Georgetown Law, and before dean at MSU, the Evjue Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin.

Greene’s recent scholarship reflects the breadth and depth of her inquiries. Her recent work includes: “Critical Race Theory: Origins, Permutations, and Current Queries” 2021 in the origins and developments in the CRT scholarship; “Up Against the Wall: Congressional Retention of the Spending Power in Times of ‘Emergency’” on the separation of law and congressional powers usurpation concerns therein; “Talking About Black Lives Matter and #MeToo” (with Lolita Buckner Innis and Bridget Crawford (2019) on the origins doctrinal and transformation potential of those movements”; “Two Justices: Brandeis, Marshall, and Federal Court Diversity on the history and importance of judicial diversity and related legitimacy; “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Gender, Olympic Competition, and the Persistence of the Feminine Ideal,” (2016), on the Olympic movement’s insistence on a feminine ideal as a criteria for competition as a woman in Olympic sport; “African American Women on the World Stage: The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing China, 1995” (2015, role of African American women in shaping an intersectional framework for the 4th World Conference Platform for Action ; “The Battle for Brown”, (2015) on the contemporary significance of Brown and its relevance in a more diverse America; and “Before and After Michael Brown: Towards an End to Structural and Actual Violence,” (2015) on racialized police violence and the need for structural societal transformation for its elimination. Dean Greene’s forthcoming book is TOWARD AN INCLUSIVE CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY: THE DISSENTING OPINIONS OF THURGOOD MARSHALL (2024, Carolina Press with Wendy Scott) on the jurisprudential legacy of Thurgood Marshall. She has provided media, political, and legal analysis for three decades for a variety of media: Wisconsin Public Television; Wisconsin Public Radio; The Isthmus newspaper; Minnesota Public Radio; National Public Radio; the Miami Herald; and The New York Times, where she has written opinion pieces since 1992. She supports and collects visual arts, cofounded a Los Angeles gallery, and has served on several art museum boards and auxiliaries.

In addition, Greene is an accomplished administrative leader. At the University of Wisconsin Madison, she was Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Chief Diversity Officer. Her roles were diverse: she conducted dean, faculty, and department chair professional development; she led faculty strategic hiring programs including STEM women, minority faculty, dual career couples, and interdisciplinary cluster hires; she served as faculty ombudsperson; and the administrative advisor for the UW Madison NSF Advance Grant which set the standard for institutional commitment to the transformation of the role of women in STEM at Very High Research Activity universities.2013-2014, she was the inaugural Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the University of California San Diego, also a Very High Research Activity University, where she established the Division of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, began the integration of DEI across administration and academics, established DEI as a core strategic planning principle, hired academic faculty to expand DEI to academic searches, and expanded student centers for minority and LGBTQIa+ students. From 2013-2014, she was the inaugural Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the University of California San Diego, also a Very High Research Activity University, where she established the Division of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, began the integration of DEI across administration and academics, established DEI as a core strategic planning principle, hired academic faculty to expand DEI to academic searches, and expanded student centers for minority and LGBTQIa+ students.

Dean Greene’s accomplishments as the Inaugural Dean of MSU College of Law (a private law school until Jan 2020) were exceptional. Before her June 2021 start date, she worked on pressing issues including the 2021-2022 budget and the groundwork for a College of Law strategic planning process that would shape the future of the College for the next decade. During her leadership, the College, previously private, conformed its budgetary and human resources policies to those of the University and increased its budget allocation by 8 million. She successfully led the College’s preparation for two important accreditation reviews—the American Bar Association renewed the COL’s colleges accreditation for ten years and the American Association of Law Schools renewed the college’s membership. Greene initiated a broadly inclusive strategic process to align its strategic objectives with those of the MSU. The College of Law Faculty adopted two strategic plans-- a MSU COL DEI Plan in April 2022 and a 5-year plan-- Empowering Opportunity in November 2023—that established her vision that the now public MSU law school “to become the preeminent law school preparing lawyer leaders to serve diverse communities in Michigan and beyond”. She renewed the college’s connection with local and statewide law communities—fractured during the Covid Pandemic-- and expanded the scope and reach of the Colleges outreach and engagement. She led the recruitment of two of the most diverse classes in a quarter century –2022 and 2023- bringing the dream of a legal education to “classes of opportunity” composed of underrepresented minorities, first generation college and law students, Pell Grant recipients, and veterans. She established a pipeline program to law school for students in K-12, and as the principal investigator spearheaded the college’s successful application for a $300,000 pre-law student preparation grant to insure that the COL will become a first choice for future Michigan lawyers. She hired eight faculty members and key staff. From April 2021, three months before her start date, she served as a key member of the MSU Deans’ Leadership team that laid the foundation for the MSU Global Ethics Institute that is on a path to establish ethics as a core value in MSU’s teaching, scholarship, and outreach.

She turns now to the scholarship she set aside to lead MSU College of Law. She will work on several projects including her book (coauthored with W. Scott) on Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall's Supreme Court jurisprudence, the Roberts’ Court racial and separation of powers legacy, and on the professionalization of intercollegiate athletics. She looks forward to her participation in media constitutional commentary that will ensue during the 2024 election cycle and on other issues of public importance, but most fondly to her return to teaching in 2025.


Download Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

J.D. University of California-Berkeley
Certificate in Public International Law: The Hague Academy of International Law
B.A. California State University-Long Beach