“The Color of Creatorship contributes to a rapidly-developing conversation in critical race intellectual property. Vats argues that once anti-racist activists grapple with the underlying racial structures of intellectual property law, they can better advocate for strategies that resist the underlying drivers of racially disparate copyright, patent, and trademark policy.” — Publisher, Stanford University Press

Professor Anjali Vats

Anjali Vats is an Associate Professor of Communication and African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College. She is also an Associate Professor (by courtesy) at Boston College Law School, where she currently teaches Critical Race Theory.

Dean Deidré Keller

Deidré A. Keller is the dean of the Florida A&M University (FAMU) College of Law in Orlando, Florida. Dean Keller writes at the intersections of intellectual property, personhood theory, critical race theory, and the Constitution.

Professor Janewa Osei Tutu

Professor Osei-Tutu is an Associate Professor at the Florida International University College of Law. Drawing on her academic and practical experiences, Professor Osei-Tutu’s scholarship focuses on the relationship between trade-related intellectual property, human development, human rights, and culture.

The New England Law Review hosted a round-table discussion based upon the arguments set forth by Anjali Vats in her peer-reviewed book, The Color of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race, and the Making of Americans.

In The Color of Creatorship, Vats argues that intellectual property formation in the United States reflects and shapes racial formation. The book explores copyright, trademark, and patent discourses and argues that it is interwoven together, operating to form American ideals about race.

The Spring Symposium hosted a round-table discussion featuring Professor Anjali Vats, Dean Deidré Keller, and Professor Janewa Osei-Tutu.

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ICYMI: watch the entire discussion below