Darren Hutchinson

Darren Lenard Hutchinson is an American legal scholar who serves as the inaugural John Lewis Chair for Civil Rights and Social Justice at Emory University School of Law, where he also directs the Emory University Center for Civil Rights and Social Justice. Hutchinson's scholarship focuses on constitutional equal protection doctrine, critical race theory, LGBTQ rights, and the intersection of race, sexuality, and social movements.

Early life and education Growing up, Hutchinson lived in Gainesville, Florida in the 1970s and 1980s. Hutchinson's mother worked as a teacher and his father was a blue-collar worker, he credits them with imparting on him the importance of education. While at Yale, Hutchinson served as a research assistant to Professor Carol M. Rose and held an Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics, and Policy. Hutchinson has also served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Fred O. Smith Jr., the Emory Law professor who led the national search for the chair, described Hutchinson as a "rigorous and courageous scholar" whose works in equal protection, LGBTQ rights, and critical race theory have "come to be regarded as classics."

Hutchinson has given lectures at numerous law schools, including Yale, Stanford, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, the University of California, Berkeley, Cornell, Georgetown, and Boston University. According to Google Scholar, Hutchinson's published work has been cited more than 2,700 times as of 2026.

Scholarship Hutchinson's scholarship examines equality law, criminal justice reform, LGBTQ rights, antiracism, and poverty, drawing on political science, history, and social psychology in addition to legal doctrine. Hutchinson's work has appeared in journals including the Yale Law Journal, California Law Review, Cornell Law Review, UCLA Law Review, and Washington University Law Review. Hutchinson has also been a contributing author for HuffPost, writing on constitutional law and civil rights. In 2010, Hutchinson was invited as a guest blogger for Concurring Opinions, a widely read legal blog by law professors.