AYELET SHACHAR

Ayelet Shachar
Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Multiculturalism
Faculty of Law
University of Toronto

Toronto, Canada

Email: ayelet.shachar@utoronto.ca

Ayelet Shachar is Professor of Law and Political Science. She has recently been appointed Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Multiculturalism at the Faculty of Law. She holds an LL.B in Law and B.A. in Political Science, summa cum laude ('93), from Tel Aviv University; LL.M. ('95) and J.S.D ('97), both from Yale Law School. Before arriving at Yale, she served as Law Clerk to Deputy Chief Justice (now retired Chief Justice) Aharon Barak of the Supreme Court of Israel. She joined the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 1999. Her scholarship focuses on citizenship theory; immigration law; highly skilled migrants and global inequality; multiculturalism and women's rights; law and religion in comparative perspective; and transnational legal process.

Professor Shachar has received many academic awards and fellowships, including nomination as Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2000-2001), Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Princeton's Law and Public Affairs Program (2003), Emile Noël Senior Fellow at NYU School of Law (2003) and Connaught Research Fellow at the University of Toronto (2005). In 2006-2007, she served as the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford Law School, and in 2007-2008 as the Jeremiah Smith Jr. Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. In recognition of her excellence in research and teaching, she has received the University's Provostial Merit Increase Award for the last four years.

Professor Shachar has published many influential articles in leading law reviews, social science journals, and edited collections. She is the author of Multicultural Jurisdictions: Cultural Differences and Women's Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2001), Winner of the American Political Science Association’s 2002 Best First Book Award. This work has influenced legal and public policy debates in Canada and abroad. It has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada (Bruker v. Marcovitz, 2007 SCC 54), by governmental commissions and reports (e.g. Ministry of the Attorney General, Dispute Resolution in Family Law: Protecting Choice, Promoting Inclusion), and most recently, by the head of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, in a major speech on state and religion delivered on February 7, 2008. 

Her new book, The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality, will be published by Harvard University Press in 2009.