Gerald Torres

Gerald Torres is a leading figure in critical race theory, environmental law, and federal Indian Law. He is currently Jane M.G. Foster Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, and previously served as the Bryant Smith Chair in Law at the University of Texas School of Law and taught at The University of Minnesota Law School, where he served as Associate Dean. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Stanford, and Yale law schools.

Torres is a former president of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). He has served as deputy assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and as counsel to then U.S. attorney general Janet Reno.

His book, The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2002) with Harvard law professor Lani Guinier, was described by Publisher's Weekly as "one of the most provocative and challenging books on race produced in years."