Professor of Law
Education
B.A. 1997, University of Michigan;
J.D. 2000, Columbia University;
B.C.L. 2002, Oxford University
Areas of Expertise
Bio
Professor Yankah hold degrees from the University of Michigan, Columbia Law School and Oxford University. His work focuses on questions of criminal theory and punishment and political theory and particularly, questions political obligation and its interaction with justifications of punishment. His work has appeared in law review articles and peer reviewed legal theory journals and books including NOMOS, Ratio Juris, Law and Philosophy, Criminal Law and Philosophy and the Illinois Law Review. He has been a visiting fellow at the Israeli Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS), a Visiting Professor of Law at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and a Distinguished Visiting Faculty Member at the University of Toronto School of Law.
He has been recognized numerous times by his students for his dedication to teaching; most recently he was awarded the Cardozo Alumni of the Year Award by Cardozo BALLSA, becoming the first non-Cardozo graduate or faculty member to be recognized. His interests have also led him to develop expertise in voting rights and election law and he serves as the co-chair of the New York Democratic Lawyers Council, the voting rights arm of the New York Democratic party and the coordinating arm of the DNC believed to be the largest voting rights group in the country. He sits on the Board of the Innocence Project and was awarded as an Advocate of Justice (2017) and has served on the Board of the American Constitution Society (NY Chapter). He maintains a public presence writing for publications spanning The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Huffington Post, among others, and has been a regular commentator on criminal law issues on television and radio including MSNBC, BBC, BBC International, PBS and NPR.
Publications
Criminal Law, Race and Equality in Palgrave Handbook on Applied Ethics and the Criminal Law (forthcoming 2018)
Stitching Us Back Together - Duties to Repair and Legal Obligations. Symposium on Thomas Shelby’s Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform in _ Crim. Law and Phil. _ (forthcoming 2018)
Policing and The Polity in Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Criminal Procedure (forthcoming 2018)
A Republican Vision of Policing: Policing and Franchise, in The Challenge of Policing in America: Security, Dignity, Democracy (forthcoming Cambridge University Press 2018)
The Common Good and Political Legitimacy, _ NOMOS _ (forthcoming 2017)
Book Review: The Failure of “Rights” in Racial Justice: Comments on From Slave Abuse to Hate Crime by Ely Aaronson, 14 Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies 192 (2017)
Facing Terror Together: Public Agents and Civic Worth, 2 Critical Analysis of Law 244 (2015)
Republican Responsibility in Criminal Law. 9 Crim. Law and Phil. 457 (2015)
Legal Vices and Civic Virtue. 7 Crim. Law and Phil. 61 (2012)
Reprinted in Aristotle and the Philosophy of Law: Theory, Practice and Justice (Ius Gentinum: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice) (Eds. Liesbeth Huppes-Cluysenaer & Nuno M.M.S. Coelho) (forthcoming 2013)
When Justice Can’t Be Done: The Obligation to Govern and Rights in the State of Terror. 31 Law and Phil. 643 (2012)
Book Review: Crime, Freedom and Civic Bonds: Arthur Ripstein’s Force and Freedom. 6 Crim. Law and Phil. 255 (2012)
Liberal Virtue in Law, Virtue and Justice (Alalia Amaya and Ho Hock Lai eds.; Oxford: Hart Publications) (with reply by Anthony Duff) (2011)
A Paradox in Overcriminalization. 14 New Criminal Law Review 1 (2011)
Book Review: Peter de Marneffe, Liberalism and Prostitution, in Notre Dame Philosophical Review (2010)
Virtue’s Domain. 2009 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1167 (2009)
The Law of Duty and the Virtue of Justice. 27 Crim. Just. Ethics 67 (2008) (symposium including Anthony Duff, Jeff McMahan, Andrew Von Hirsch and Andrew Ashworth; reply by George Fletcher)
The Force of Law: The Role of Coercion in Legal Normativity. 42 U. Rich. L. Rev. 1195 (2008)
Good Guys and Bad Guys: Punishing Character, Equality and the Irrelevance of Moral Character to Criminal Punishment. 25 Cardozo L. Rev. 1019 (2004)
Contact Information
Cardozo School of Law
55 Fifth Avenue, Suite 504
New York, NY 10003
Current Courses
Ekow N. Yankah in the news
- Sep 14, 2018 Professor Yankah To Deliver Keynote on Criminal Law and the Opioid Epidemic
- Sep 13, 2018 Professor Yankah Interviewed on Frontline's "Left Behind America"
- Jul 19, 2018 Professor Yankah Featured in Ebony Magazine
- Jun 14, 2018 Professor Yankah Contributes to Conversation in ABA Journal on Opioid Crisis
- May 1, 2018 Professor Yankah Comments on Meek Mill and the Effects of Parole Violations
- Apr 20, 2018 Professor Yankah Speaks to NPR on the Opioid Crisis: "Why Has it Prompted More Compassion Than the Crack Epidemic of the Past?"
- Apr 20, 2018 Professor Yankah Comments on Cohen Investigation on MSNBC
- Mar 23, 2018 Professor Yankah Speaks to NPR on 'Why NCAA Athletes Shouldn't Be Paid'
- Mar 15, 2018 Professor Yankah Speaks to the Independent About Record Number of Innocent Prison Inmates Released Over Police or Prosecutorial Misconduct
- Jan 31, 2018 Professor Yankah Appears Live With the NY Times on Facebook, Speaks About Response to Opioid Epidemic