The University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Center on Race and Social Problems, and our generous co-sponsors are thrilled to invite you to the fourth biennial conference on race and intellectual property!

Race + IP is dedicated to cultivating community and collaboration around the study of race, coloniality, and intellectual properties. The inaugural conference was held in 2017 at Boston College, with subsequent conferences being held at NYU Law School in 2019 and Florida A&M University College of Law in 2021. This year, the organizers have opted to take up the crisis of the moment: the battle over white supremacy. While this battle may be most evident in politics, it is evident in other spaces as well. The conference theme, “The Imperial Scholar” Revisited, seeks to interrogate how and when intellectual property law collides with imperialism, drawing inspiration from a now canonical law review article. When Richard Delgado first invoked the phrase “imperial scholar,” he was speaking of practices that animate the academy and perceptions of expertise. These are, of course, deeply intertwined with the boundaries of intellectual properties. In light of this year’s theme, we are particularly thrilled to welcome Prof. Richard Delgado and Prof. Jean Stefancic as keynote speakers for the event.

This year’s conference will be hosted at the Center on Race and Social Problems in the Cathedral of Learning on the University of Pittsburgh campus. Consistent with our commitments to access, we have made the conference free to attend, with some meals included. We encourage you to join us for the opening and closing receptions, as well as for an amazing set of panels, featuring lawyers, scholars, and activists who are working toward more racially just intellectual property systems. We also encourage you to mark your calendars for the Friday afternoon session on Race + IP as Movement Building.

Click here for more information about the conference, including speakers and schedule. Register to attend by clicking here.


Race + IP ’23 Organizing Committee

Anjali Vats, University of Pittsburgh School of Law
Margaret Chon, Seattle University School of Law
Deidré Keller, Florida A&M University College of Law