The conference will be held March 21 through 24, 2019, at American University Washington College of Law and promises to be the largest gathering of legal scholars of color in history, with an expected attendance of over 500 law professors and scholars in allied fields from across the United States and the world. This is the fourth such gathering. The previous three gatherings have taken place at eight-year intervals and have involved the participation of the six regional People of Color Legal Scholarship Conferences (the Mid-Atlantic, Midwestern, Northeast, Southwest, Southwest, and Western), as well as various national POC and/or progressive legal scholarship organizations, including the Society of American Law Teachers, Latino/a Critical Legal Scholarship (LatCrit), the Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Faculty (CAPALF), ClassCrits, eCRT, and other prominent groups.

The 2019 conference theme is “People of Color and the Future of Democracy.”  We find ourselves at a critical moment, both as a nation and as a community of legal scholars of color interested in the future of our democracy. The Fourth National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference will include a pipeline program for law faculty aspirants, resources for junior faculty of color to present their work in supportive workshops. The conference is expected to feature over 100 panels and colloquia, works-in-progress sessions supporting junior colleagues, and various plenary keynote addresses and roundtables.