Sahar Aziz

Sahar Aziz's scholarship examines the intersection of national security, race, religion, and civil rights with a focus on the adverse impact of national security laws and policies on racial, religious, and ethnic minorities.  She is the author of the book The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom and the founding director of the Center for Security, Race and Rights.  Professor Aziz is a recipient of the Derrick A. Bell Award from the Association of American Law Schools and was named a 2020 Middle Eastern and North African American National Security and Foreign Policy Next Generation Leader by New America.

Sahar Aziz is Professor of Law, Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar, and Middle East and Legal Studies Scholar at Rutgers University Law School.  Professor Aziz’s scholarship adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examine intersections of national security, race, and civil rights with a focus on the adverse impact of national security laws and policies on racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in the U.S.  Her research also investigates the relationship between authoritarianism, terrorism, and rule of law in the Middle East.  She is the founding director of the interdisciplinary Rutgers Center for Security, Race, and Rights (csrr.rutgers.edu) and a faculty affiliate of the African American Studies Department at Rutgers University-Newark Professor Aziz serves on the Rutgers-Newark Chancellor's Commission on Diversity and Transformation as well as the editorial board of the Arab Law Quarterly and the International Journal of Middle East Studies.  Professor Aziz teaches courses on national security, critical race theory, Islamophobia, evidence, torts, and Middle East law.

Professor Aziz is the recipient of numerous awards including a Soros Equality Fellowship (2021), A New America Middle Eastern and North African American National Security and Foreign Policy Next Generation Leader (2020), the Research Making an Impact Award by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (2017), the Derrick Bell Award from the American Association of Law Schools Minority Section (2015), and an Emerging Scholar by Diverse Issues in Higher Education (2015).  She serves on the board of directors of ReThink Media, the Project on Democracy in the Middle East (POMED), and Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN).  

Professor Aziz has published over thirty academic articles and book chapters. Her articles are published in the Harvard National Security Journal, Washington and Lee Law Review, Nebraska Law Review, George Washington International Law Review, Penn State Law Review, and the Texas Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Journal.  Her forthcoming book The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom examines how religious bigotry racializes immigrant Muslims through a historical and comparative approach. 

Professor Aziz’s commentary has appeared in the New York Times, CNN.com, Carnegie Endowment’s Sada Journal, Middle East Institute, Foxnews.com, World Politics Review, Houston Chronicle, Austin Statesmen, The Guardian, and Christian Science Monitor.   She is a frequent public speaker and has appeared on CNN, BBC World, PBS, CSPAN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Al Jazeera English.  She is an editor of the Race and the Law Profs blog.  She previously served on the board of the ACLU of Texas and as a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution – Doha.   

Prior to joining legal academia, Professor Aziz served as a Senior Policy Advisor for the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security where she worked on law and policy at the intersection of national security and civil liberties.  Professor Aziz began her legal career as a litigation associate for WilmerHale after which she was an associate at Cohen Milstein Sellers and Toll PLLP in Washington, D.C. where she litigated Title VII class actions on behalf of plaintiffs.

Professor Aziz earned a J.D. and M.A. in Middle East Studies from the University of Texas where she was as an associate editor of the Texas Law Review.  Professor Aziz clerked for the Honorable Andre M. Davis on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.