‘The Challenge of Wrenching Poverty in North Carolina’
Gene Nichol is a distinguished professor of law at the University of North Carolina. He was director of the UNC Poverty Center (2008-2015) until it was closed by the Board of Governors for publishing articles critical of the governor and General Assembly. Nichol was president of the College of William & Mary (2005-2008), law dean at the University of Colorado (1988-1995) and dean at UNC from 1999-2005.
He is author of LESSONS FROM NORTH CAROLINA: Race, Religion, Tribe and the Future of American Democracy (Blair, 2023); INDECENT ASSEMBLY: The North Carolina Legislature’s War on Democracy and Equality (Blair, 2020); THE FACES OF POVERTY IN NORTH CAROLINA: Stories from our Invisible Citizens (UNC Press, 2018). He’s published articles in the Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Duke, California, and Virginia law reviews and been a columnist for the Raleigh News & Observer, the Charlotte Observer and the Durham Herald for many years.
In 2008 Nichol was inducted into the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina’s highest civilian honor. In 2014, he received UNC’s Thomas Jefferson Award – the university’s highest faculty honor and the McCall Teaching Award from the UNC Law School. Nichol’s poverty book won UNC’s Wettach Award for research excellence.
Read Nichol’s University of North Carolina School of Law biography HERE.
