1. Faculty Profile: Maureen Edobor

Faculty Profile: Maureen Edobor Maureen Edobor is an assistant professor of law and a fellow in the DeLaney Center.

By Law Communications
November 13, 2025

Maureen A. Edobor joined the faculty in 2023. She teaches and writes in constitutional law, election law, and democratic theory, and serves as a Theodore DeLaney Center Fellow focusing on Southern race relations, politics, and culture. Her scholarship examines how constitutional and election law doctrines influence access to democratic participation and shape collective understandings of civic identity.

Originally from Queens, New York, Edobor credits her tenth-grade English teacher with challenging her inside and outside the classroom, pushing her to read more sophisticated work and explore her own writing interests. "In hindsight, she provided me with a shadow education that had concrete effects on my educational and professional trajectory."

Edobor headed south to the University of Texas at Arlington for her undergraduate degree, where she continued her study of English while also adding a focus on politics inspired by the U.S. Supreme Court election law case Bush v. Gore, foreshadowing her eventual scholarly agenda.

A 2017 graduate of W&L Law, Edobor credits professors Margaret Hu and Johanna Bond for supporting her during law school and exposing her to "societal and legal inequities that affect women in unique ways." She was also very involved in the Black Law Students Association, both at the local and national level. As a 3L, she served as the attorney general for the National Black Law Students Association, where she worked on policy statements and co-authored an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Buck v Davis, a case involving racial bias.

Following graduation, she clerked for Judge Pamela White '77L at the Baltimore City Circuit Court, a position that she described as "an electrifying experience as the city was going through many hardships and reforms that filtered through the court during my clerkship." Edobor's post-law school experience included stints in government, where she was the Policy Director and Counsel for the Congressional Black Caucus, and in legal education. Following a term as a visiting assistant professor of law at Penn State, she began to see a permanent home for herself in academia.

It was serendipity when a position that combined her interest in constitutional law, voting rights, and politics became available at W&L, and she welcomed a change from the constant hustle of life inside the D.C. Beltway.

"Teaching offers a really unique opportunity to slow down, observe the law unfold (or influence it as it does), and make observations about it while being in conversation with brilliant students and thoughtful law professors," said Edobor. "In a sense, this is how the law is constructed, and my desire to be part of that is ultimately what drew me back."

Only a few years into her academic career, Edobor has already made notable contributions with her scholarship, which explores how doctrinal frameworks, interpretive methodologies, and institutional arrangements can either entrench exclusion or promote a more inclusive constitutional democracy. In 2024, she was awarded the Ethan Allen Faculty Fellowship for outstanding scholarship for her article "The Right to Truth," forthcoming in the UCLA Law Review, where she argues for an extension of students' First Amendment rights to protect against government interference with the historically objective teaching of slavery, the Civil War, racism, and similar topics that cause discomfort to majoritized groups.

Edobor has published, or has forthcoming, articles in the Penn Journal of Constitutional Law, the Texas Law Review, and the California Law Review. But she says she is most excited about a work in progress, titled "Status, Not Race," coauthored with a colleague at Howard University, which examines the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard and the public response to the outcome.

"In the article, we interrogate the jurisprudential implications of Justice Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion in the case, which reframes the Fourteenth Amendment through a colorblind lens, rooted in originalist misreadings of Reconstruction-era legislation," said Edobor. "By construing the Freedmen's Bureau Acts as race-neutral rather than race-conscious, Justice Thomas unwittingly opens the constitutional door to affirmative action and reparations programs that benefit the descendants of American slaves and individuals harmed by the government's discrimination."

Outside of her legal scholarship, Edobor is sought after for her expertise and analysis. She was selected as one of the first five recipients of the Steven M. Polan Fellowship in Constitutional Law and History, part of a new program launched by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. Earlier this year, she was appointed to serve as a member of the Virginia Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She has also offered analysis and commentary on voting rights and affirmative action in pieces for Slate.com.

Edobor certainly appreciates how her scholarship and advocacy interact with her teaching, and she is especially impressed by how her students are navigating massive changes in nearly every sector of the law.

"Students are meeting the challenge with curiosity, bravery, and a solid confidence in themselves, which in my mind are all qualities that make a great lawyer," said Edobor.

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