Karen M. Tani L'07
Seaman Family University Professor

Karen M. Tani is a scholar of U.S. legal history, with broad interests in social welfare law, administrative agencies, and the role of rights in the modern American state. Her current research is about the history of disability law in the late twentieth century.
Books
STATES OF DEPENDENCY: WELFARE, RIGHTS, AND AMERICAN GOVERNANCE, 1935-1972 (Cambridge 2016).
[Available Here]
Articles and Book Chapters
Constitutionalization as Statecraft: Vagrant Nation and the Modern American State, 43 L. & SOC. INQUIRY 1646 (2018).
From the Well-Regulated Society to the Modern American State, 57 AM. J. LEGAL HIST. 243 (2017).
Clio and the Compound Republic, 47 PUBLIUS: THE JOURNAL OF FEDERALISM 235 (2017) (with Brent Cebul and Mason Williams).
Siting the Legal History of Poverty: Below, Above, and Amidst, in COMPANION TO AMERICAN LEGAL HISTORY (Sally E. Hadden & Alfred L. Brophy eds., Wiley Blackwell 2013) (with Felicia Kornbluh).
Portia's Deal, 87 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 549 (2012).
The House that "Equality" Built: The Asian American Movement and the Legacy of Community Action, in THE WAR ON POVERTY: A NEW GRASSROOTS HISTORY (Annelise Orleck & Lisa Gayle Hazirjian eds., U. of Georgia Press, 2011).
More publications can be found here.
Research Areas
- U.S. Legal & Constitutional History
- Disability Law
- Civil Rights Law
- Social Welfare Law
- Poverty Law
- Law and Inequality
- History & Development of the American Welfare State
- Administrative Law
Courses
- Law & Inequality
- Social Welfare and American Law
- Torts
- U.S. Legal and Constitutional History
- COVID & the Law