J.D., Yale Law School, 2000
M.Litt., University of Oxford, 1998
B.A., Yale University, 1995
Cristina M. Rodríguez is the Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law and Deputy Dean at Yale Law School, as well as the Faculty Co-Director of the Ludwig Program in Public Sector Leadership.
On Dec. 19, 2025, Yale University President Maurie McInnis announced the selection of Rodríguez as the next dean of Yale Law School. She will assume the deanship on Feb. 1, 2026, as the Sol and Lillian Goldman Dean and Professor of Law at Yale Law School.
Rodríguez’s career spans 25 years in academia and the legal profession. Her scholarship and teaching center on constitutional law and theory, administrative law and process, and immigration law and policy. A widely published and influential scholar, Rodriguez has authored more than 70 academic articles and essays in the Yale Law Journal, the Harvard Law Review, and numerous other scholarly journals, edited volumes, and media publications. She has been a sought-after expert by outlets such as The New York Times, NPR, The New Yorker, the Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.
Her recent work includes a series of empirically informed papers on accountability and policymaking within administrative agencies and their relationship to democratic governance, set against the backdrop of monumental changes in administrative law.
She is also the author of the book “The President and Immigration Law,” (Oxford University Press, 2020), an exploration of two centuries of presidential influence over the metes and bounds of American immigration policy, with Adam B. Cox. At a 2021 symposium, legal scholars called the book a “remarkable scholarly achievement” and a work of “big arguments, grand scale, and historical sweep, yet also institutional detail, political acuity, and legal nuance.”
A complete list of her scholarship and other writing can be found on SSRN and in her CV.
Rodríguez began her academic career on the faculty of NYU School of Law in 2004, where she taught until 2012. She also has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia. She joined the faculty of Yale Law School in 2013 and was named the Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law in 2014.
Throughout her career, Rodriguez has displayed a commitment to the rule of law and to public service. In 2021, the president appointed Rodriguez to co-chair the bipartisan Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. From 2011 to 2013, she served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice. While there, she received an Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service, one of the highest honors given to employees of the Department of Justice, as well as recognition from the White House for her outstanding work.
In 2020, Rodríguez was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies. She is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute, as well as the Administrative Conference of the United States, and has been a past member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In recognition of her passion and skill in the classroom, Rodriguez received the Yale Law Women Excellence in Teaching Award in 2020.
Since joining the faculty, Rodriguez has contributed to the University and Law School communities in numerous roles. In addition to being deputy dean, Rodriguez has served as co-chair of Yale’s University Committee on Institutional Voice, appointed by Yale University President Maurie McInnis; co-director of Yale Law School’s Global Constitutionalism Seminar; faculty co-director of the Carol and Gene Ludwig Program in Public Sector Leadership, part of the Tsai Leadership Program to bring together leaders from across the ideological spectrum to model open inquiry and robust debate to students; and as a member of numerous committees that have worked to improve the student experience and intellectual environment at Yale.
Rodríguez earned her B.A. in history from Yale College in 1995. She attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, where she received a master of letters in modern history in 1998. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2000. After law school, Rodríguez clerked for Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.
THE PRESIDENT AND IMMIGRATION LAW (with Adam B. Cox) (Oxford University Press, September 2020)
RACIAL JUSTICE AND LAW (Foundation Press) (1st ed. 2016) (with R. Richard Banks, Guy-Uriel Charles, and Kim Forde-Mazrui),
IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE LAW & POLICY (with Stephen H. Legomsky) (Foundation Press 6th ed. 2015) (5th ed. 2009) (Supplements 2011 & 2013).
Language Rights and Migration, in THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GLOBAL HUMAN MIGRATION (Oxford University Press 2013)
Immigration and the Civil Rights Paradigm, in THE NEW BLACK: WHAT HAS CHANGED, AND WHAT HAS NOT, WITH RACE IN AMERICA (Guy-Uriel Charles & Ken Mack, eds., New Press 2013)
The Integrated Regime of Immigration Regulation, in WRITING IMMIGRATION: SCHOLARS AND JOURNALISTS IN DIALOGUE (Roberto Suro & Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, eds., University of California Press 2011)
The Constitutional Status of Irregular Migrants: Testing the Boundaries of Human Rights Protection in Spain and the United States, in ARE HUMAN RIGHTS FOR MIGRANTS? (Marie Dembour & Tobias Kelley, eds., Routledge 2011) (with Ruth Rubio-Marín)
Legal Limits on Immigration Federalism, in TAKING LOCAL CONTROL: IMMIGRATION POLICY ACTIVISM IN U.S. CITIES AND STATES (Monica Varsanyi, ed., Stanford University Press 2010) (with Muzaffar Chishti & Kimberly Nortman)
The Law of Language in the Classroom, in AFFIRMING STUDENTS’ RIGHT TO THEIR OWN LANGUAGE: BRIDGING EDUCATIONAL POLICIES TO LANGUAGE/LANGUAGE ARTS TEACHING PRACTICES (Dolores Straker, et al. eds., Routledge 2008)
The Supreme Court, 2020 Term—Foreword: Regime Change, 135 HARV. L. REV. 1 (2021)
Reading Regents and the Political Significance of Law, 2019 SUP. CT. REV. (2021)
Closing the Nation’s Doors, 60 Democracy: A Journal of Ideas (October 2020) (Symposium issue: Trump v. Democracy)
Trump v. Hawaii and the Future of Presidential Power and Immigration Law, ACS Supreme Court Review 2017–2018
Enforcement, Integration, and the Future of Immigration Federalism, 5 J. of Migration and Human Security 509 (2017)
Regulatory Pluralism and the Interests of Migrants, Immigration, Emigration, and Migration: NOMOS LVII (2017), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3513449
The President and Immigration Law Redux, 125 Yale L.J. 104 (2015) (with Adam B. Cox)
Complexity As Constraint, 115 Colum. L Rev. Sidebar 179 (2015) (a review of Jon Michaels, An Enduring, Evolving Separation of Powers, 115 COLUM. L. REV. 515 (2015))
Toward Detente in Immigration Federalism, 30 Virginia J. of Law & Politics 505 (2015) (symposium issue: The Future of Immigration Enforcement (in honor of retirement of David Martin))
Negotiating Conflict Through Federalism: Institutional and Popular Perspectives, 123 YALE L. J. 2094 (2014)
Legal Frameworks Affecting Immigrant Integration: Federal Baselines and Local Variation (working paper commissioned by National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Integration of Immigrants in U.S. Society) (October 2014) (utilized and excerpted in: The Integration of Immigrants into American Society (NAS Committee Report 2015)
Law and Borders, Democracy Journal (summer 2014)
Uniformity and Integrity in Immigration Law: Lessons from the Decisions of Justice (and Judge) Sotomayor, YALE L. J. FORUM (March 15, 2014).
Immigration, Civil Rights, and the Formation of the People, 142 DAEDELUS (2013)
Constraint through Delegation: The Case of Executive Control over Immigration Policy, 59 DUKE L.J. 1787 (2010) (reprinted in Immigration and Nationality Law Review (2012))
Non-citizen Voting and the Extra-constitutional Construction of the Polity, 8 I * CON, The International Journal of Constitutional Law 30 (2010)
Immigration and the Civil Rights Agenda, 6 STAN. J. C.R.-C.L. 123 (2010) (symposium issue: civil rights and the Obama administration) (reprinted in THE NEW BLACK: WHAT HAS CHANGED, AND WHAT HAS NOT, WITH RACE IN AMERICA (Guy-Uriel Charles & Ken Mack, eds., New Press 2013))
Transnational Regulation of Migration, 110 COLUM. L. REV. SIDEBAR 1 (2010) (reprinted in Migration, Human Rights and Development: A Global Anthology, Anne T. Gallagher, ed. (2013))
The President and Immigration Law, 119 YALE L. J. 458 (2009) (with Adam B. Cox)
The Citizenship Clause, Original Meaning, and the Egalitarian Unity of the Fourteenth Amendment, 11 UNIV. PENN. J. OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 1363 (2009) (symposium issue: originalism and the Reconstruction Amendments)
A Review of Peter Spiro, Beyond Citizenship: American Identity after Globalization, 103 AMERICAN J. OF INT’L L. 180 (2009)
Discrete and Insular No More, 12 HARV. LAT. LATINO REV. 41 (2009) (symposium issue in honor of the publication of Latinos and the Law (Delgado, Perea, Stefancic, eds.))
The Significance of the Local in Immigration Regulation, 106 MICH. L. REV. 567 (2008)
The Citizenship Paradox in a Transnational Age, 106 MICH. L. REV. 1111 (2008) (a review of Hiroshi Motomura, AMERICANS IN WAITING: THE LOST STORY OF IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES, Oxford University Press (2006))
From Litigation, Legislation, 117 YALE L.J. 1132 (2008) (a review of Brian Landsberg, FREE AT LAST TO VOTE: THE ALABAMA ORIGINS OF THE 1965 VOTING RIGHTS ACT, University Press of Kansas (2007))
Against Individualized Consideration, 83 IND. L. J. 1405 (2008) (symposium issue: Latino/as at the Epicenter of Legal Discourse)
Latinos and Immigrants, 11 HARV. LATINO L. REV. 247 (2008) (symposium issue: Latino Civic Participation)
Guest Workers and Integration: Toward a Theory of What Immigrants and Americans Owe One Another, 2007 UNIV. OF CHI. LEGAL FORUM 219
E Pluribus Unum: How bilingualism strengthens American democracy, DEMOCRACY: A JOURNAL OF IDEAS (2007)
Language Diversity in the Workplace, 100 NORTHWESTERN UNIV. L. REV. 1689 (2006)
Language and Participation, 94 CAL. L. REV. 687 (2006)
Accommodating Linguistic Difference: Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Language Rights in the United States, 36 HARV. C.R.-C.L. L. REV. 133 (2001)
Clearing the Smoke-Filled Room: Women Jurors and the Disruption of an Old-Boys’ Network in Nineteenth- Century America, 108 YALE L.J. 1805 (1999)
The Radical Supreme Court Travel Ban Opinion, Just Security (June 27, 2018) (with Adam Cox & Ryan Goodman)
A Primer on the DACA Rescission, Balkinization (October 5, 2017) (with Adam Cox & Marty Lederman)
Trump and Sessions Can’t Blame Constitution for their Cruel DACA Decision, Newsweek (Sept. 6, 2017) (with Adam B. Cox) (originally posted on Just Security blog)
DHS memos build a wall around the U.S. without laying a brick (February 21, 2017)
Trump and the Immigration Bureaucracy, Just Security (February 9, 2017)
Frameworks for Immigration Reform, in What’s the Big Idea? Recommendations for Improving Law & Society in the Next Administration (American Constitution Society, October 2016)
Co-convener (with Adam B. Cox) of Symposium on Administrative Reform of Immigration Law, Balkinization (November 26, 2014)
Symposium Introduction (with Adam Cox)
Executive Discretion and Congressional Priorities (with Adam Cox)
Concluding Thoughts: Line Drawing, the Separation of Powers, and the Responsibilities of the Political Branches (with Adam Cox)
It’s OK That Congress Won’t Fix Immigration: States Can Do A Lot on Their Own, Washington Post (Post Everything) (June 30, 2014)
Negotiating Conflict through Federalism, Balkinization (April 2014)
Delegation and Divergence: A Study of the 287(g) Program and State and Local Immigration Enforcement, Migration Policy Institute Paper (2011) (with R. Capps, M. Rosenblum, M. Chishti)
Fourteenth Amendment is Key to American Experiment, (August 17, 2010) (critiquing proposals to deny birthright citizenship to children of unauthorized immigrants)
A Program in Flux: New Priorities and Implementation Challenges for 287(g), Migration Policy Institute Paper (2010) (with M. Chishti, R. Capps, L. St. John)
Regulating Immigration at the State Level: Highlights from the Database of 2007 Immigration Legislation and Methodology, Migration Policy Institute Paper (2008) (with L. Laglagaron, A. Silver, S. Thanasombat)
Testing the Limits: A Framework for Assessing the Legality of State and Local Immigration Measures, Migration Policy Institute Paper (2007) (with M. Chishti & K. Nortman)
