Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander, associate professor of employment law and legal studies, will deliver the keynote address at the University of Georgia’s Black Faculty and Staff Organization’s 15th annual Founders’ Award Scholarship Luncheon.
The luncheon will be held Oct. 23 from 12:30-2 p.m. in the Tate Student Center’s Grand Hall. The luncheon is rescheduled from the original Sept. 12 date, when the university was closed due to Tropical Storm Irma.
Bennett-Alexander, who teaches in UGA’s Terry College of Business, publishes extensively in the employment law area with particular emphasis on race, gender and sexual orientation issues. In 1994 she co-authored a first-of-its-kind textbook, Employment Law for Business, which established the discipline in colleges of business. The text is now going into its ninth edition and remains the leading text in the country in its discipline. She also co-authored The Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Environment of Business in a Diverse Society and The Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Environment of Business.
She is a cum laude graduate of the Howard University School of Law and a magna cum laude graduate of the Federal City College (now the University of the District of Columbia), both in Washington, D.C. She is licensed to practice law in D.C. and six federal jurisdictions. She has received more than 40 awards for teaching and service, including the 2017 award for UGA’s best Diversity & Inclusion program, Women’s Studies Professor of the Year and one of UGA Student Government Association’s 10 Outstanding Professors of the Year for 2016. She was also a Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship and taught and conducted research on race and gender at the Ghana School of Law in Ghana, West Africa, for 10 months.
Before coming into academia, Bennett-Alexander worked in legal capacities in Washington, D.C., at the Federal Labor Relations Authority litigating federal sector labor law cases; the White House Domestic Council, serving as assistant to the associate director and general counsel; the D.C. Court of Appeals, as law clerk to Julia Cooper Mack, the first black female to serve on the D.C. Court of Appeals; the Federal Trade Commission’s Antitrust Division; the U.S. Department of Justice’s Honors Program; the University of North Florida; and the Antioch School of Law.
For over 30 years, BFSO has been involved in conceptualizing and implementing programs and services focused on equity and diversity at UGA. BFSO played a role in the creation and growth of the Department of Minority Services and Programs, Institute for African American Studies, African American Cultural Center, Office of Institutional Diversity, Presidential Minority Advisory Committee and several initiatives.