Guy-Uriel Charles is the Charles S. Rhyne Professor of Law, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research, and founding director of the Duke Law Center on Law, Race and Politics. He is an expert in and frequent public commentator on constitutional law, election law, campaign finance, redistricting, politics, and race. He joined Duke Law’s faculty in 2009. He previously was the Russell M. and Elizabeth M. Bennett Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School where he served as interim co-Dean (with Fred Morrison) from 2006-08.
He has published articles in Constitutional Commentary, The Michigan Law Review, The Michigan Journal of Race and Law, The Georgetown Law Journal, The Journal of Politics, The California Law Review, The North Carolina Law Review, The Iowa Law Review and others. He is the co-author of Election Law in the American Political System (with James Gardner) and Racial Justice and Law: Cases and Materials (with Ralf Richard Banks, Kim Forde-Mazrui, and Cristina Rodriguez). He is co-editor of The New Black: What has Changed—and what has not—with Race in America (with Kenneth Mack) and Race, Reform, and Regulation of the Electoral Process: Recurring Puzzles in American Democracy (with Heather Gerken and Michael Kang).
Professor Charles received his JD from the University of Michigan Law School and clerked for The Honorable Damon J. Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. While at the University of Michigan, he was the founder and first editor-in-chief of the Michigan Journal of Race & Law. From 1995-2000, he was a graduate student in political science at the University of Michigan.
He grew up in Stamford, Connecticut.