Rosa Brooks

Rosa Brooks ( Ehrenreich; born 1970) and the 2021 book Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City, which is based on her five years as a reserve police officer in Washington, D.C.

At Georgetown Law, Brooks founded the Center for Innovations in Community Safety, formerly the Innovative Policing Program, which in 2017 launched the Police for Tomorrow Fellowship Program with Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department. She founded the Leadership Council for Women in National Security, the Transition Integrity Project and the Democracy Futures Project. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, Washingtonian magazine listed Brooks as one of Washington's "most influential people."

Early life and education Rosa Brooks is the daughter of author Barbara Ehrenreich (née Alexander) and psychologist John Ehrenreich. Her parents separated when she was young and she also grew up with her stepparents, Gary Stevenson and Sharon McQuaide. Her mother was of Scottish, Irish and English descent, while her father's ancestors were Jewish immigrants from Central Europe, but both her parents were from non-religious families. She was named after Rosa Parks and Rosa Luxemburg. Her brother is journalist and author Ben Ehrenreich. Brooks was born in a public clinic in New York City but when she was a child her parents moved to Oyster Bay, New York. She attended elementary school in Syosset and briefly attended Syosset High School in Syosset, New York, but left early after two years to attend Harvard. In 1991, she earned a Bachelor of Arts (history and literature) from Harvard University.

While an undergraduate, Brooks lived in Lowell House and served as president of the Phillips Brooks House Association, Harvard's undergraduate public service organization. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was a Marshall Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford. and, since 2007, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.

From 2016 to 2020, she was also a reserve police officer with the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, and she received the Chief of Police Special Award in 2019. She has also been active in Democratic presidential campaigns. She served most recently as a volunteer advisor on defense policy to the Biden campaign, and she is frequently consulted as an expert advisor on issues of national security, criminal justice, democracy and rule of law. In July 2024, after Biden's weak debate performance, she promoted a "blitz primary" to identify an alternative candidate to Joe Biden.

Writings Brooks' scholarly work has focused mostly on national security, terrorism and rule of law issues, international law, human rights, law of war, failed states, and, more recently, criminal justice and policing. Along with Jane Stromseth and David Wippman, Brooks coauthored Can Might Make Rights? Building the Rule of Law After Military Interventions (2006). Brooks is also the author of numerous scholarly articles published in law reviews.

Brooks authored the 2016 book How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything. It was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was selected by Military Times as one of the ten best books of the year. The book was also shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize and the Arthur Ross Book Award.

In 2021, she published Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City, which is about her experience as a reserve police officer in Washington, D.C. Tangled Up in Blue was selected by the Washington Post as one of the best non-fiction books of 2021.

Political commentary In addition to serving as a weekly opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times and Foreign Policy, Brooks was a founder of Foreign Policy'''s weekly podcast, The E.R., and is now a member of the Deep State Radio podcast team. She has been a frequent guest and panelist on MSNBC, Fox, CNN and NPR. Brooks has contributed numerous op-eds and book reviews to the Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and numerous other publications.

Personal life Brooks has two children. Brooks was previously married to the Yale literary critic Peter Brooks, and subsequently married LTC Joseph Mouer, a now-retired Army Special Forces officer.

Works Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the Nation's Capital, Penguin, 2021, Rosa Brooks, Jane Stromseth, David Wippman, Can Might Make Rights? Building the Rule of Law After Military Interventions, Cambridge University Press, 2006, A Garden of Paper Flowers: An American at Oxford'', Picador, 1994, (under the name Rosa Ehrenreich; later articles are credited to Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks)