Rose Cuison-Villazor is the interim co-dean for Rutgers Law School (Newark) and professor of law. She is an expert in immigration, citizenship, property law, and race and the law. She is a nationally regarded scholar with an active record in social justice issues and is the founder of the Rutgers Center for Immigration Law, Policy, and Justice. Dean Villazor teaches, researches, and writes in the areas of immigration and citizenship law, property law, Asian Americans and the law, equal protection law, and critical race theory. Her research agenda explores legal structures and systems that determine membership and sense of belonging in the United States.
Dean Villazor's current research projects examine the extent to which states, cities, churches, and nonstate actors, such as universities and churches, provide "sanctuary" to undocumented immigrants and refugees.
She is also working on two book projects: one on Asian Pacific Americans and the Law (forthcoming at NYU Press) and the other on Property Law and Race (forthcoming at Carolina Academic Press). Previously, Dean Villazor was a professor of law and Martin Luther King Jr. Hall Research Scholar at the University of California at Davis School of Law.
She earned her B.A. from the University of Texas, her L.L.M. from Columbia Law School, and her J.D. from American University.