Tanya Monique Washington
Marjorie F. Knowles Chair in Law, Professor of Children's Constitutional Rights Center for Access to Justice- Education
LL.M., Harvard Law School
J.D., University of Maryland School of Law
B.A., James Madison University
- Specializations
Children and the Law
Civil Liberties
Civil Procedure
Education Law
Family Law
Legal History
- Biography
Tanya Washington, a native of the city that bears her last name, is a professor of children's constitutional rights at Georgia State University College of Law. After earning her J.D. from The University of Maryland School of Law she clerked for then Associate Judge Robert M. Bell on the Maryland Court of Appeals.
After practicing for several years as toxic tort defense litigator at Piper & Marbury, she completed the Albert M. Sacks Fellowship, the A. Leon Higginbotham Fellowship and earned her LL.M. from Harvard Law School. She has been teaching Civil Procedure I and II, Family Law, Education Law and Race and Law at Georgia State for the past twelve years. Her research and scholarship focuses on issues related to educational equity, domestic relations, race and children’s constitutional rights.
Washington’s articles have been published in law journals across the nation, including: the Harvard Journal for Race and Ethnic Justice, the Indiana Law Review, the Iowa Journal of Gender, Race and Justice, the Utah Law Review, the Whittier Journal of Child and Family Advocacy, the Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal and the George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal. A self-professed activist and scholar, Washington has worked collaboratively to ensure that legal scholarship has a practical and positive impact for vulnerable individuals and communities. Her co-authored amicus briefs filed with the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges highlight the harmful impact of exclusionary marriage laws on children in same-sex families and they challenge states’ characterization of these laws as child welfare measures. The Obergefell brief was cited by Justice Anthony Kennedy in the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in that landmark decision.
A belief that the true value of the law lies in its capacity to improve the human condition animates her work, which has been presented at numerous conferences, programs and law schools including Harvard Law School, the University of Maryland Law School, Emory University School of Law, the University of Iowa College of Law, the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association, and the National Bar Association 2014 Presidential Showcase. In addition to her tenured position at Georgia State College of Law, Washington is a former adjunct faculty member at Howard University Law School where she served for more than ten years.
She has taught comparative law classes for study abroad programs in Brazil, Europe and China. Washington has also led pipeline programs designed to increase enrollment of students of color in U.S. law schools. These programs include: The Charles Hamilton Houston Preparatory Institute, The Justice Benham Law Camp, G-PLUS, and the Council on Legal Education Opportunity’s Six-Week Summer Institute. Her efforts to expand and deepen the pipeline of students entering law school earned her recognition in 2013 as one of 50 minority law professors under 50 making an impact in legal education.
- Publications
Books
Lynn Wardle, Tanya Washington, & et. al., Family Law From Multiple Perspectives: Cases and Commentary (2nd. ed., West Academic Publishing, 2019)
Book Chapters
Tanya Monique Washington, Family Law: The Legal Ordering of Intimate Relations, in Overview of U.S. Law (2nd ed., Carolina Academic Press, 2018).
Andrea A. Curcio, Gregory T. Jones, & Tanya M. Washington, Essay Question Formative Assessments in Large Section Courses: Two Studies Illustrating Easy and Effective Use, in Exploring Learning & Teaching in Higher Education 349 (M. Li & Y. Zhao, eds. 2015).
Tanya M. Washington, From Slavery to Obama: The Affirmative Action Revolution, in Ações afirmativas : a questão das cotas : análises jurídicas de um dos assuntos mais controvertidos da atualidade (Renata Ferreira dos Santos, ed. 2011).
Tanya Monique Washington, Family Law: The Legal Ordering of Intimate Relations, in Overview of U.S. Law (Ellen S. Podgor & John F. Cooper eds., LexisNexis, 2009).
Articles
Tanya Washington Hicks, Fulton's Flaw: In the Constitutional Clash Between Religious Liberty and LGBTQ+ Rights, Foster Kids are Neither Seen nor Heard , 60 Fam. Ct. Rev. 40 (2022)
Courtney Anderson & Tanya W. Hicks, Introduction: Assuming a Critical Lens in Legal Studies: Reconciling Laws and Reality, 37 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 1125 (2021)
Tanya Washington, Susannah Pollvogt, Catherine Smith, & Lauren Fontana, Children's Rights in the Midst of Marriage Equality: Amicus Brief in Obergefell v. Hodges by Scholars of the Constitutional Rights of Children, 14 Whittier J. Child & Fam. Advoc. 1 (2015).
Tanya Washington, et al., Brief of Amici Curiae Scholars of the Constitutional Rights of Children in Support of Petitioners, 14 Whittier J. Child & Fam. Advoc. 7 (2015).
Tanya Washington, J. Robert Brown, Susannah W. Pollvogt, Catherine E. Smith, & Kyle C. Velte, Brief for Amici Curiae Scholars of the Constitutional Rights of Children in Support of Respondent Edith Windsor Addressing the Merits and Supporting Affirmance, 17 J. Gender Race & Just. 471 (2014).
Tanya Washington, In Windsor's Wake: Section 2 of DOMA's Defense of Marriage at the Expense of Children, 48 Ind. L. Rev. 1 (2014).
Tanya Washington, Catherine Smith, & Susannah Pollvogt, Amicus Brief in United States v. Windsor by Scholars for the Recognition of Children's Constitutional Rights, 17 J. Gender Race & Just. 467 (2014).
Tanya Washington, Reflections on a Great Dissenter, 72 Md. L. Rev. 1141 (2013).
Tanya M. Washington, Once Born, Twice Orphaned: Children's Constitutional Case Against Same-Sex Adoption Bans, 2013 Utah L. Rev. 1003 (2013) (also published at 15 J.L. & Fam. Stud. 19 (2013)).
Tanya Washington, What About the Children? Child-Centered Challenges to Same-Sex Marriage Bans, 12 Whittier J. Child & Fam. Advoc. 1 (2012).
Derek Alphran, Tanya Washington, & Vincent Eagan, Yes We Can, Pass the Bar. University of the District of Columbia, David A. Clarke School of Law Bar Passage Initiatives and Bar Pass Rates - From the Titanic to the Queen Mary, 14 U.D.C. L. Rev. 9 (2011).
Tanya Washington, Suffer Not the Little Children: Prioritizing Children's Rights in Constitutional Challenges to "Same-Sex Adoption Bans", 39 Cap. U. L. Rev. 231 (2011).
Tanya M Washington, Throwing Black Babies Out with the Bathwater: A Child-Centered Challenge to Same-Sex Adoption Bans, 6 Hastings Race & Poverty L.J. 1 (2009).
Tanya Monique Washington, All Things Being Equal: The Promise of Affirmative Efforts to Eradicate Color-Coded Inequality in the United States and Brazil, 21 Nat'l Black L.J. 1 (2009).
Tanya M. Washington, Comparative Racialization: From Subjugation to Resistance and Remedy, 21 Nat'l Black L.J. 1 (2009).
Andrea A. Curcio, Gregory Todd Jones, & Tanya M. Washington, Does Practice Make Perfect? An Empirical Examination of the Impact of Practice Essays on Essay Exam Performance, 35 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 271 (2008).
Andrea A. Curcio, Gregory Todd Jones, & Tanya M. Washington, Developing an Empirical Model to Test Whether Required Writing Exercises or Other Changes in Large-Section Law Class Teaching Methodologies Result in Improved Exam Performance, 57 J. Legal Educ. 195 (2007).
Tanya Washington, Loving Grutter: Recognizing Race in Transracial Adoptions, 16 Geo. Mason U. Civ. Rts. L.J. 1 (2005).
Howard S. Chasanow, et al., In Memoriam: John M. Brumbaugh, 61 Md. L. Rev. 1 (2002).
Popular Press
Tanya Washington, Were Justice Scalia's Remarks in Fisher v. Texas Racist?, ACS Blog (Dec, 18, 2015).
Tanya M. Washington, Ban Harms Georgia Kids, Atlanta J.-Const., Oct. 10, 2014, at A14.
Other
Catherine Smith, Lauren Fontana, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Tanya Washington, & Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, Amicus Brief in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civ. Rights Comm'n. (2017).
Tanya Washington, Catherine Smith, & Susannah Pollvogt, Amicus Brief in Robincheaux v. Caldwell (2014)