Faculty Spotlight: Professor of Law Lisa Shaw Roy

This next school year, Professor Lisa Shaw Roy will be joining the California Western faculty, returning to her Southern California roots after over twenty years spent as a Southerner at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Professor Roy is an authority on Constitutional Law, with a particular passion for First Amendment issues, intersections of church and state, and law and religion. Her expertise has been highly sought after, resulting in her tenure on the Mississippi Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  She was also a member of the reading group for the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Reflecting on what got her started “many years ago,” Professor Roy notes that it all began with a paper in law school. She needed a topic to write about, was taking a class on the First Amendment, and stumbled into the question of student-initiated religious speech.  Compelled to investigate deeper, Professor Roy eventually published the paper and, when she became a professor, found “a natural entree” into researching and learning more: “I just get energy– it’s my fuel– researching, teaching, talking to my students about these ideas and hearing their questions and their passion for the topic.”

While at the University of Mississippi, Professor Roy found her work at the epicenter of questions of church and state. For years, her research focused on symbols and how they became the basis for Supreme Court battles over the meaning and application of the Establishment Clause. Professor Roy’s work investigated the cultural and constitutional values informing these debates and tracked the Court’s evolution over the years from a strict separationist approach to a more accommodationist one.

In recent years, Professor Roy has written about the Mississippi flag, which was the last to have its Confederate Battle emblem removed, ultimately having it replaced with the phrase “In God We Trust.” Professor Roy’s fascinating paper on this topic, “Civil Religion as Civil Rights”-- which her students invited her to write and publish!-- investigates the “relationship between religious language and the pursuit of racial equality,” in particular, the religious values and rhetoric that formed the backbone for much of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s. Her paper argues for a more expansive “religious vision that can be inclusive and not exclusionary,” uniting people, whether religious or secular, in pursuit of civil rights.

Looking forward, Professor Roy is eager to continue her research into the historical intersection between religious values and the civil rights movement, and to share her knowledge with her students. She describes her approach to teaching as “student-centered,” always attuned to how the material will land with her students, providing them with the big picture before hammering down into details. Last year, she was awarded the Ben A. Hardy Faculty Excellence Award at Ole Miss Law, recognizing her outstanding teaching and demonstrating her profound dedication to her students’ success.

Professor Roy says, “What really spoke to me about Cal Western was the culture of service. The professors and faculty that I’ve met are committed to students. And many of those students are first-generation lawyers, which is exciting, because that was my story, too.”

We warmly welcome Professor Roy to the California Western community, and look forward to benefiting from her depth of thought and commitment to service.