Andrea Freeman

Biography

Professor Freeman writes and researches at the intersection of critical race theory and food policy, health, and consumer credit. Much of her work explores her pioneering theory of food oppression, which examines how facially neutral food-related law and policy, influenced by corporate interests, disproportionately harm marginalized communities. She is the author of Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice (Stanford University Press 2019) and Ruin Their Crops on the Ground (forthcoming from Metropolitan in 2023) and the recipient of the 2020-21 Fulbright King's College London US Scholar Award to study food inequality in the UK.

Professor Freeman teaches Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, Race and Law, Food Law and Policy, and Comparative Social Justice and Constitutional Law. In Spring 2017, she visited at UC Berkeley School of Law. In Summer 2018, she was the Distinguished Scholar of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law School. In 2018-19, she visited at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. Before joining the faculty at Richardson in Fall 2013, she taught at Santa Clara University School of Law, University of San Francisco School of Law, and California Western School of Law.

An active community member, Professor Freeman serves on the Litigation Committee of the ACLU Hawai'i chapter. She volunteers with the Kokua Hawaii Foundation teaching Aina in the Schools. In 2015, she received the Community Faculty of the Year award from  Richardson's Advocates for Public Interest Law. Professor Freeman is the Chair of the AALS Constitutional Law section in 2022-23 and Past Chair of the Executive Committee of the AALS Section on Agriculture and Food Law.  She is co-chair of the Law and Society Collaborative Research Network for Critical Race and the Law and a Founding Member of the Academy of Food Law and Policy.

After graduating from U.C. Berkeley School of Law, she clerked for Judge Jon O. Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and former chief Judge José A. Fusté of the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. Before law school, she worked in Toronto as a counselor for women and children who experienced domestic violence and in New York as a production manager in the independent film industry.

In the News

• Saturday Mornings with Joy Keys, October 9, 2021
• For the Culture Food Magazine blog, September 2021
• Her Holistic Path, podcast, Black Breastfeeding Week, August 2021
• Whole Mother, Houston Community Radio, interview, January 30, 2021
• Whetstone Magazine’s Point of Origin, podcast, Spoiled Milk, October 21, 2020
• The Electorette, podcast, Andrea Freeman discusses her book “Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice,” July 26, 2020
• The Electorette, podcast, Prof. Andrea Freeman discusses the Food Security Crisis and the Pandemic, June 21, 2020
• Andrea Freeman Awarded 2020-21 Fulbright-King’s College London Research Scholar Award
• The Justice Collaborative Institute, The Government Must Increase SNAP Benefits and Eligibility to Avoid a National Food Emergency, May 14, 2020
• The Attitude With Arnie Arnesen, The Food Supply, May 7, 2020

• The Conversation, Trump’s order to keep meat plants open mistakes meat shortage for a food shortage, May 4, 2020

• Motherwordly Podcast, Breastfeeding, Race and Injustice, with Andrea Freeman, March 14, 2020

• Kathryn Rubino, The Weird Role of Breastfeeding in Systems of Injustice, Above the Law, March 3, 2020

• Newstalk Irish National Radio, interview with Sean Moncrieff, February 25, 2020
• Beandrea July, From Breastfeeding to Beyoncé, ‘Skimmed’ tells A New Story About Black Motherhood, NPR Shots Blog, February 11, 2020
• Anjali Endeti, When Mother’s Milk Isn’t Enough: ‘Skimmed’ Takes A Closer Look at the Racial Disparities In Breastfeeding, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 10, 2020
• The Health Policy Podcast, Andrea Freeman Discusses Her Just-Published Book “Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice,” interview with David Introcaso, January 9, 2020
• Fran Smith, How do we close the stubborn racial gap in breastfeeding? New book offers ideas, Center for Health Journalism, December 17, 2019
• NPR, Here & Now, How Black Women were ‘Skimmed’ By Infant Formula Marketing, interview with Tonya Moseley, December 16, 2019
• Arise!, WPFW, interview with Bill Fletcher, December 13, 2019

Publications

• Skimmed Revisited, Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice Symposium, 57 Cal. W. L. Rev. 331 (2021)
• Unconstitutional Food Inequality, 55 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 840 (2020) SSRN
• You Better Work: Unconstitutional Work Requirements and Food Oppression, 53 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 151 (2020). SSRN 

• SKIMMED: BREASTFEEDING, RACE AND INJUSTICE, Stanford University Press (2019).  Amazon | IndieBound.org | Indigo

• Unmothering Black Women: Formula Feeding as an Incident of Slavery, 69 Hastings L.J. 1545 (2018). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace

• Racism in the Credit Card Industry, 95 North Carolina L. Rev. 1071 (2017) (selected for presentation at the 2016 Yale/Harvard/Stanford Junior Faculty Forum). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• Behavioral Economics and Food Policy: The Limits and Politics of Nudging, in NUDGING HEALTH: HEALTH LAW AND BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS, Johns Hopkins University Press (2016). SSRN | ScholarSpace
• First Food Justice: Racial Disparities in Infant Feeding as Food Oppression, 83 Fordham L. Rev. 3053 (2015). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• The 2014 Farm Bill: Food Subsidies and Food Oppression, 38 Seattle U. L. Rev. 1271 (2015). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• Transparency for Food Consumers: Nutrition Labeling and Food Oppression, 41 Am. J. L. & Med. 315 (2015). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• The Unbearable Whiteness of Milk: Food Oppression and the USDA, 3 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. 1251 (2013). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• Payback: A Structural Analysis to the Credit Card Problem, 55 Arizona L. Rev. 151 (2013). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• Linguistic Colonialism: Law, Independence and Language Rights in Puerto Rico, 20 Temp. Pol. & Civil Rights L. Rev. 177 (2010). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• Fast Food: Oppression Through Poor Nutrition, 95 Cal. L. Rev. 2221 (2007). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace
• Morris Communications v. PGA Tour: Battle over the Rights to Real-Time Sports Scores, 20 Berkeley Technology L. J. 23 (2005). HeinOnline | SSRN | ScholarSpace