Ellen Berrey, PhD, is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, an affiliated scholar of the American Bar Foundation, and a faculty affiliate of the Distributed AI Research Institute. Her research explores the cultural dynamics of inequality, race, law, organizations, and social movements.

Her most recent book, with Robert Nelson and Laura Beth Nielsen, Rights on Trial: How Workplace Discrimination Law Perpetuates Inequality (University of Chicago Press, 2017) was awarded the 2018 Distinguished Book Award, Honorable Mention, of the American Sociological Association (ASA) Sociology of Law section. It was featured in an Author-Meets-Critics session at the June 2018 meeting of the Law & Society Association. For more, visit the book website and check out chapter 1.

Her first book, The Enigma of Diversity: The Language of Race and the Limits of Racial Justice (University of Chicago Press, 2015) was awarded the 2016 Herbert Jacob Book Prize of the Law & Society Association, the 2016 Distinguished Book Award of the American Sociological Association (ASA) Sociology of Law section, and the 2016 Mary Douglas Book Prize Honorable Mention of the ASA Sociology of the Culture section. You can read about it in the New Yorker. Her Salon article, “Diversity Is for White People,” has been shared on social media more than 33,000 times.

Professor Berrey is currently working on two research projects. One explores anti-racist activism and campus protest movements in U.S. and Canada, while the other examines misinformation, conspiracy theories, and the far-right anti-sustainability movement.