Deborah M. Weissman

Deborah M. Weissman is the Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. She joined the School of Law faculty in 1998 and served as the Director of Clinical Programs between January 2001 and June 2010.  Prior to joining the faculty at UNC, she was the Executive Director of Legal Services of North Carolina, a statewide program providing legal services to poor and under-served communities.  Her research, teaching, and practice interests include immigration law, human rights, and gender and law. She has published widely in law journals including, among others, the Columbia Journal of Human Rights, the Georgetown Journal on Law and Poverty, the Brooklyn Journal of International Law, and the William and Mary Law Review.  She has contributed to edited volumes, most recently a chapter entitled “Global Economics and Their Progenies: Theorizing Femicide in Context,” in Terrorizing Women, Femicide in the Americas (Rosa-Linda Fregoso and Cynthia Bejarano, eds., Durham: Duke University Press, 2010).

Professor Weissman currently teaches the Immigration/Human Rights Policy Clinic at the UNC School of Law. The clinic provides representation to immigrants and engages in policy projects in coordination with human rights NGOs,primarily in the Western Hemisphere. The clinic has focused on the impact of local immigration enforcement policies in North Carolina and has also engaged in research regarding gender violence in the Americas.  Professor Weissman has testified before Congress about the clinic’s research findings and has consulted with national immigrant rights groups about federal-local immigration partnerships and their impact on local communities.  She has also collaborated with the Ministry of Justice in Havana, Cuba about developing international legal norms related to gender-based violence.  Her current research project focuses on U.S. foreign policy and Mexico’s “drug war” and its impact on U.S. immigration enforcement.