By the time Kate Redburn (they/them) enrolled in a J.D./Ph.D. program, they had already dived deeply into archival research on American history, worked as a paralegal on a successful racial harassment case, been a community organizer, published in Salon, photographed local activists in Argentina while on a Fulbright scholarship, and, along the way, compiled an impressive academic record.
“I thought that you could be a civil rights lawyer and historian and public intellectual and law professor and history professor,” Redburn says. But a law school adviser recommended a narrower focus, pointing out that there are only so many jobs one person can credibly perform at a time. Legal scholarship won out.
“Being a law professor allows me to combine historical research with work that’s linked to the present,” Redburn says.
Redburn, who has been an academic fellow at Columbia Law since 2022, joined the faculty on July 1 as an associate professor of law. They hold a B.A. in history and African studies from Columbia College and a master’s degree in history and a J.D. from Yale University. After law school, Redburn clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. They will complete their Ph.D. in history, also from Yale, in 2026.
As a legal historian, Redburn’s scholarship focuses on cultural conflicts over gender, sexuality, and religion since the middle of the 20th century: Their most recent article explains how constitutionally protected speech has been used as a vehicle to discriminate on religious grounds—a legal strategy that culminated in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the Supreme Court decision holding that antidiscrimination law cannot be used to compel individuals to sell products expressing messages with which they disagree.
Redburn has also examined the history of cross-dressing bans and identified a distinct transgender legal movement in the United States. Additionally, they have written about the conflict between family law and zoning law.
In April, Redburn was named “Emerging Scholar of the Year” by The Yale Law Journal, an honor that celebrates early career academics “who have made significant contributions to legal thought.” The award promotes “scholarship that has the potential to drive improvements in the law.”
“I hope to be producing scholarship that links legal developments to the history of American political economy,” Redburn says. “If that scholarship is helpful to contemporary movements then all the better.”
Redburn is also director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, where they will oversee two fellows developing transgender policy starting in 2026. “The attacks on transgender lives are coming from so many directions,” Redburn says. “Right now, it feels like all hands on deck.”
Legal Theory in a Contemporary Frame
In 2003, when Redburn was a high school student taking a course on constitutional law at Columbia University’s summer program, the Supreme Court decided Lawrence v. Texas, striking down a state law criminalizing homosexual sex. The moment sealed their interest in both constitutional law and gender and sexuality law.
“My lifetime has corresponded with some significant milestones in the advance and retrenchment of sexual freedom,” Redburn says. “It’s important for scholars to explain how legal disputes over regulating gender and sexuality have altered the distribution of public and private power.” The subject, Redburn says, has only become more contested in the two decades since. “I’m in the archives of the two major sociolegal movements battling over gender and sexuality: the LGBT legal movement and the conservative legal movement,” Redburn says. “My work is part of a growing literature historians are calling ‘history of the present,’ which uses historical methods to explain contemporary issues.”
Beginning a New Course
As an academic fellow at the Law School, Redburn taught LL.M. Legal Research and Writing. Now, as a full-time faculty member, Redburn will teach Law and Religion, Professional Responsibility, and Regulation of Gender & Sexuality. The latter is a new course, designed by Redburn, that will aim to illuminate the constitutional and statutory principles in this growing area of law, drawing on the federal and state constitutions, administrative law, antidiscrimination law, health law, criminal law, immigration law, and family law. Redburn says the class will approach the topic both as a body of law touching American life in general and from the perspective of social movements advocating for people who are marginalized by their sexual and gender nonconformity.
Students can expect a teaching style Redburn describes as “rigorous and engaged.” Because the material covers sensitive topics, Redburn emphasizes the collaborative nature of the classroom. “I want my students to feel comfortable enough to follow their curiosities to unexpected places. I try to model that balance by treating the material with the care it merits, but not taking myself too seriously.”
Redburn remembers that “law school can give the false impression that legal puzzles are merely abstract games to be solved.” They try to combat that danger by situating case law in history and theory, and by “making the stakes of individual disputes plain.”
Law School via South America
Redburn’s road to becoming a legal historian was a circuitous one. After graduating from Columbia College with a history degree in 2010, Redburn headed to Argentina, where same-sex marriage had just been legalized.
“I thought, I’m interested in the relationship between law and sexuality, and I don’t know what I want to do,” Redburn says. They did a series of odd jobs before connecting with queer and trans activist groups outside of Buenos Aires. “I started asking them about their work, and realized that I could preserve their stories through oral history interviews.” They decided to stay in Argentina, and secured a Fulbright grant that helped with finances for a second year.
“I helped put on the first gay pride parade in the little town of Orán in far north Argentina,” says Redburn. “We did a week of pride-related events with local gay and trans groups. I made a short documentary about being trans in northern Argentina, and we projected it on the side of the mayor’s office.”
In 2012, Argentina affirmed the right to choose gender identity. The experience deepened Redburn’s awareness of how political structures like the relationship between local and national governments shape the pathways for civil rights movements.
Although Redburn grew up in San Francisco as the child of two lawyers, they initially swore they would not follow in their parents’ profession. (“I didn’t want to measure my life in briefs.”) But that high school constitutional law course had made an impact, and so did a brief stint as a paralegal for a New York firm that represented a hotel worker whose colleagues hung a noose in the workplace.
A revelation came during a bus ride through Patagonia.
“I really loved doing historical research, but I wanted to be connected to social change,’’ Redburn says. “To do both, I would need to understand the internal logic of legal systems.” They took the LSAT and GRE in Argentina and headed to Yale.
These days, Redburn goes on long runs around the Brooklyn neighborhood where they live with their partner, a middle-school educator, and cat, Orlando (think Virginia Woolf, not Florida). Even though it makes for a long commute, Redburn is committed to Brooklyn. “We are huge sports fans, and we could never abandon the New York Liberty.”
