Kevin R. Johnson

Kevin R. Johnson is a Distinguished Professor of Law, Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law. Johnson also has an appointment as Professor of Chicana/o Studies at UC Davis. He joined the UC Davis law faculty in 1989 and was named Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in 1998. Johnson then served as Dean from 2008 to 2024. He has taught a wide array of classes, including immigration law, civil procedure, complex litigation, Latinos and Latinas and the law, and Critical Race Theory. In 1993, he was the recipient of the law school’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

Johnson has published extensively on immigration law and civil rights. Published in 1999, his book How Did You Get to Be Mexican? A White/Brown Man’s Search for Identity was nominated for the 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. Johnson’s book, Immigration Law and the US-Mexico Border (2011), received the Latino Literacy Now’s International Latino Book Awards – Best Reference Book. He is co-author of two editions of Immigration Law and Social Justice (2d ed. 2022). Johnson blogs at ImmigrationProf.