David Dante Troutt is professor of law (Justice John J. Francis
Scholar) and the founding director of the Rutgers Center on Law in
Metropolitan Equity (CLiME). He teaches and writes in four areas of
primary interest: the Metropolitan Dimensions of Race, Class and Legal Structure; Intellectual Property; Torts; and Critical Legal Theory. His
major publications (noted below) include books of fiction and
nonfiction, scholarly articles, and a variety of legal and political
commentary on race, law, and equality. A member of the faculty since 1995
after practicing corporate and public interest law in New York and
California, Professor Troutt founded CLiME in 2013 in order to provide a research
resource for students and the public interested in the growing
challenges of municipalities and families trying to sustain middle-class
outcomes amid growing fiscal constraints and rapid demographic change.Several themes characterize Professor Troutt's work. A key feature of his
writing and teaching about the intersections of race, class, and place
concerns identifying blind spots in conventional analyses of spatially
determined opportunity through structuralist and interdisciplinary
analysis. This work involves inquiries about meanings of colorblindness,
the role of inequity in persistent marginalization, and the utility of
civil rights theories in addressing concentrated poverty. He is
conducting ongoing research on developing the principle of mutuality in
public law. Key themes in Professor Troutt's writing about intellectual property
include personhood and authorship in copyright and trademark. Key
aspects of his work in critical theory include the uses of narrative
methodology, cultural constructions of marginalization, and the dynamic
life of stereotypes.
Professor Troutt is a frequent public speaker and contributor to a
variety of national periodicals, including Politico, the Huffington Post,
Reuters, and The Crisis. He received his undergraduate degree from
Stanford University and his juris doctor from Harvard Law School. An
avid drummer, carpenter, photographer, and ichtheologist, he lives with
his wife and family in Montclair, New Jersey.
