Ralph Richard Banks is the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and a professor, by courtesy, at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. He is the Founder and Faculty Director of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice, an initiative that aims to confront and counter the polarization that plagues American society through an analysis of contentious racial issues free from the orthodoxies of Left and Right.
Professor Banks is the co-author of two leading law school casebooks,听Racial Justice and the Law: Cases and Materials听(2016) (with co-editors Kim Forde-Mazrui, Guy Uriel Charles and Cristina Rodriguez) and聽Family Law in a Changing America听(2nd聽ed. 2024) (with co-editors Douglas NeJaime, Joanna Grossman, and Suzanne Kim). He is also the author of the trade book聽Is Marriage for White People?聽 How the African American Marriage Decline affects Everyone听(2011; paperback 2012), described by the聽Los Angeles Times聽as a 鈥渕ust read,鈥 by the聽New York Times聽as 鈥渋mportant鈥 and by the聽Wilson Quarterly聽(the official publication of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars) as one of the Top Ten Books of 2011. The book has been featured by a wide range of media outlets, including聽The Wall Street Journal,听The Economist,听贰蝉蝉别苍肠别听magazine,听The Village Voice,听Time,听Newsweek/The Daily Beast, and also NPR (local and national) CNN, ABC News/Nightline,听The View, and Fox News, among many others. His forthcoming book,听The Big Sort: How College Can Make or Break the American Dream, will be published in 2025.
At Stanford, Professor Banks teaches Constitutional Law, Family Law and a variety of courses related to race, law and inequality. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1998 after clerking for federal judge Barrington D. Parker, serving as the Reginald F. Lewis Fellow at Harvard Law School and practicing law at the law firm O鈥橫elveny & Myers. He graduated from Harvard Law School with honors and received Bachelor鈥檚 and Master鈥檚 degrees from Stanford 精东影业.