Julia Mendoza,
Professor of Law
Links
Education
- BA, University of California, Santa Cruz
- MA, Columbia University
- MA, New York University
- JD, University of California, Davis School of Law
- PhD, New York University
Background
Julia Mendoza joined the Loyola Law School faculty in 2022. She is an interdisciplinary legal scholar who focuses on criminal law and education. In addition to her J.D. from UC Davis School of Law, she earned an M.A. in Human Rights from Columbia University, and has an M.A. and a Ph.D. in American Studies from New York University. Before coming to Loyola, Professor Mendoza was a fellow at Stanford Law School, and served as a legal fellow at the ACLU of Northern California in the Racial Justice Project. During her fellowship she worked on two advocacy campaigns that utilized a combination of legislative advocacy, public education, and organizing strategies to address racial disparities within public schools and felon disenfranchisement.
Julia is currently working on her book manuscript entitled, The Miseducation of the Barrio: The School to Prison Pipeline in Stockton California (under contract with Stanford University Press). By centering the experience of Black and Latinx students and drawing on hundreds of hours of fieldwork in addition to historical archival work, The Miseducation of the Barrio deepens the historical connection between school desegregation and the school-to-prison pipeline by detailing how the two histories unfolded in the city of Stockton. She has also published On Top of Prison Row: A Topographical History of Carcerality in California in the UCLA Law Review and Writing for Abolitionist Futures in the Online Stanford Law Review.
Selected Presentations:
- “Graciela Olivárez Latinas in the Legal Academy,” Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, California (May 30, 2023)
- “CULP Colloquium,” Duke Law School, Raleigh, North Carolina (May 15, 2023)
- “Community-Based Research,” Stanford University, Palo Alto, California (April 27, 2021)
- “Abolition 101,” Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, California (November 9, 2020)
- “Police-Free Schools: A Movement Lawyering Perspective,” Stanford Law School, Palo Alto, California (October 26, 2020)
- “Give Me Back My Child!”: The Local History of the School to Prison Pipeline in Stockton California” Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Washington, District of Columbia (June 1, 2019)
- “On Top of Prison Row: An Examination of the School-to-Prison Pipeline in Stockton, California,” People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, American University Washington College of Law, Washington, District of Columbia (March 23, 2019)
- “Policing Latinx Communities,” UCLA Law Review Symposium: Latinx Communities, Race, and the Criminal Justice System, UCLA School of Law, Los Angeles, California (February 8, 2019)