Kaimipono David Wenger
J.D., Columbia University School of Law;
B.A., Arizona State University, cum laude
Professor Wenger’s research focuses on a variety of civil rights topics. His scholarship has appeared in or is forthcoming in the Wisconsin Law Review, American University Law Review, University of San Francisco Law Review, Loyola L.A. Law Review, Connecticut Law Review CONNtemplations, Thomas Jefferson Law Review and the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development. His current work examines issues in critical race theory, reparations and apology for slavery and Jim Crow, theories of justice in mass restitution, LGBT rights, law and religion, and Native Hawaiian rights.
Professor Wenger has presented his work at a variety of events, including as an invited panelist at the Annual Legislative Conference of the Congressional Black Caucus in both 2008 and 2010. He was the Lead Faculty Organizer of the 2010 Women and Law Conference at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, which focused on “Women of Color and Intersectionality” and was held in conjunction with UCLA School of Law’s Fourth Annual Critical Race Studies Symposium. He also organized a 2006 conference at Thomas Jefferson on Taking Reparations Seriously. He writes for the legal blog Concurring Opinions.
Prior to joining Thomas Jefferson in 2005, Professor Wenger clerked for Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York (he was the “tobacco clerk” that year), and practiced law with Cravath, Swaine & Moore, LLP, in New York City.
Courses include:
Business Associations, Wills and Trusts and Critical Race Theory
Articles, Book Chapters, And Article-Length Works
Forty Acres and a Lawsuit: Legal Claims for Reparations, in Race, Ethnicity, and Law 79-91 (Emerald Publishing Limited 2017)
The Unconscionable Impossibility of Reparations; or, Why the Master's Mules will Never Dismantle the Master's House, in Injury and Injustice: The Cultural Politics of Harm and Redress (David Engel ed., Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2017)
“The Divine Institution of Marriage”: A Short Overview of LDS Statements and Actions During the Proposition 8 Campaign, 26 J. C.R. & Econ. Dev. 705 (2013)
From Radical to Practical (and Back Again?): Reparations, Rhetoric, and Revolution, 25 Journal of Civil Rights & Economic Development 697 (2011)
Too Big to Remedy? Rethinking Restitution for Slavery and Jim Crow, 44 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 177 (2010)
Apology Lite: Truths, Doubts, and Reconciliations in the Senate's Guarded Apology for Slavery, 42 Conn. L. Rev. 1 (2009)
The Church's Use of Secular Arguments, in Six Voices on Proposition 8: A Roundtable, 42 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 99 (2009)
United States v. Socony-Vaccuum, Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court. (2008)
Reparations Within the Rule of Law, 29 T. Jefferson L. Rev. 231 (2007)
Causation and Attenuation in the Slavery Reparations Debate, 40 U.S.F. L. Rev. 279 (2006)
Nullificatory Juries, 2004 Wis. L. Rev. 1115 (2003) (with David A. Hoffman)
Slavery as a Takings Clause Violation, 53 Am. U. L. Rev. 191 (2003)
Reparations and Apology: Recent Developments and Future Possibilities, Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference, Washington, D.C., September 17, 2010
Loyola Law School, Invited Panelist. Rethinking Restitution for Slavery and Jim Crow
2010 Civil Justice Symposium, “Rethinking Remedies” panel, Los Angeles, California, (with Jason Solomon, Stephen Munzer, and Doug NeJaime), Mar. 2010
Towards Microreparations, Arizona State University, Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law, 2010 Southwest Junior Faculty Conference, Tempe, AZ, Mar. 2010
UCLA Law School, Panelist and Moderator. Forty Acres at the Intersection: The Role of Slavery Reparations in Addressing the Subordination of Multiply-Marginalized People. 4th Annual Critical Race Studies Symposium, “Intersectional Critiques of Legal Doctrine” panel, Los Angeles, California, (with K.J. Greene, William “Chip” Carter Jr., and Joseph Morrisey), Mar. 2010
Radical Reparations. Southern California Junior Faculty Conference, Southwestern University Law School, Los Angeles, California, May 2009
Towards Microreparations. University of Utah works-in-progress series, Salt Lake City, Utah, Mar. 2009
Reinventing Reparations. LaVerne Law School works in progress series, Orange, California, Feb. 2009
Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference, Invited Panelist, Legal Claims for Reparations. Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference, “Reparations for Slavery” panel, Washington, D.C., (with Katrina Browne and Eric J. Miller) Oct. 2006
Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Panelist, Reparations within the Rule of Law. Taking Reparations Seriously conference, “Why Reparations Matter” panel, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, California, (with Jack Greenberg, Roy L. Brooks, and Robert Westley), Mar. 2006
Cardozo Law School, Speaker. Causation and Attenuation in the Slavery Reparations Debate. Brooklyn-Cardozo Mass Tort series, New York, New York, 2004
The Thomas Jefferson School of Law faculty is highly prolific in the field of legal scholarship and our professors are in demand as speakers and panelists at legal events in the U.S. and abroad.