UB Law Professor Judy Scales-Trent Wins Fulbright Award

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Judy Scales-Trent, professor of law at the University at Buffalo, has received a Fulbright award to conduct research and teach in Senegal during the 2000-2001 academic year.

Scales-Trent will teach a course in comparative constitutional law to doctoral students at the law school at Université Cheik Anta Diop, a pre-eminent university in West Africa.

She also will conduct research on women lawyers in the country, exploring the factors in their background that led these women to a professional career, how female lawyers are treated in the workplace and the organizational goal of Association des Femmes Juristes, the Senegalese association of women lawyers.

Scales-Trent will teach and conduct her research in French, the official language of Senegal.

She is one of approximately 110 Americans who have been selected by the Fulbright program to reach or conduct research in 27 African countries during 2000-2001.

A UB faculty member since 1984, Scales-Trent teaches courses in constitutional law, administrative law and employment-discrimination law. She received the Barbara Jordan Award for faculty excellence in 1998 from the National Black Law Students Association at its regional meeting held in Buffalo.

Scales-Trent is the author of "Notes of a White Black Woman: Race, Color, Community," which uses her personal experiences as a light-skinned African American to explore what "race" really means in America, once it is clear that it has nothing to do with color.

She received a bachelor's degree in French from Oberlin College, a master's degree in French from Middlebury College and a law degree from Northwestern University.

She resides in East Amherst.