Richard Thompson Ford is the George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.^[1] His scholarship includes work on critical race theory, local government law, housing segregation, and employment discrimination. He has served as a housing commissioner for the San Francisco Housing Commission,^[2] and continues to work with local governments on issues of affordable housing and segregation. His book Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality was chosen as one of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2011.^[3] His 2021 book on dress codes explores the relationship between fashion and power.^[4]

He graduated with a BA from Stanford University in 1988 and a JD from Harvard Law School in 1991.^[5]

Selected publications

• Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History Simon & Schuster, 2021. ISBN 9781501180064^[6]
• Universal Rights Down to Earth. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2011. ISBN 9780393079005
• Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. ISBN 9780374250355^[7]
• The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse. Macmillan, 2008. ISBN 9780374245757^[1][8]
• Racial Culture: A Critique (Princeton University Pr., 2005).
• "The Boundaries of Race: Political Geography in Legal Analysis." Harvard Law Review (1994): 1841–1921.
• "Beyond "Difference" : A Reluctant Critique of Legal Identity Politics" in: Left legalism/left critique. Eds. Wendy Brown, and Janet Halley. Duke University Press, 2002. ISBN 9780822329756
• "Geography and Sovereignty: Jurisdictional Formation and Racial Segregation." Stanford Law Review (1997): 1365–1445.