Welcome! My name is Justin L. Brooks, and I am a Ph.D. candidate in Government (Political Theory) at Harvard University. At Harvard, I am a Presidential Scholar, a Graduate Prize Fellow, and a former Harold Laski Fellow (given to the department's top applicant in political theory). I earned my A.M. in Government at Harvard University, J.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, and B.A. in Political Science at Morehouse College.
My academic research agenda employs conceptual methods and tools from political philosophy, criminal law, black studies, and legal history. As a point of entry, my project treats black intellectual writing and grassroots political organizing as legitimate grounds for philosophical reflection. Presently, I write about labor histories, property relations, and systems of punishment.
My first academic publication, Juridical Occasions for Racial Formation: The Freedmen's Bureau, Labor, and Private Law, is forthcoming in the UCLA Law Review Discourse. The Essay interrogates the racial philosophy of the Freedmen's Bureau in the context of private law. Advancing a post-Revisionist account of Reconstruction, the Essay instantiates the process of racial formation in the contract jurisprudence of the Freedmen's courts by theorizing from Bill, Charles, Jupiter, Randolph, et al. v. William A. Carr, Leon Cty., Fla. (1866), an incredibly rare, comprehensive Freedmen's court case file.
Drawing upon my experience defending indigent clients in criminal court, I engage in public writing to explore the broader implications of carceral violence in the United States and abroad. My writing has appeared in The Appeal, American Prospect, Truthout, and Slate. Additionally, I appeared in A&E's Exposing Parchman, a documentary film, to discuss the racial politics of the U.S. South, the conditions of Mississippi prisons, and the importance of allocating resources to formerly incarcerated people to facilitate their community re-entry.
For the 2023-2025 academic years, I am on a formal leave-of-absence to clerk on the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Second Circuit.
Copyright © 2024 Justin L. Brooks - All Rights Reserved.
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.