Sheryll D. Cashin

Cashin graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. As a Marshall Scholar, she received a master’s degree in English Law with honors from Oxford University.

Cashin received a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School, where she was a member of the Harvard Law Review. She was law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

For her two decades of writing and advocacy for residential and school integration, the Fair Housing Justice Center honored her with the 2017 Acting for Justice Award for Outstanding Contributions to Civil Rights.

She is the author of five books. Her new book, “White Space, Black ‘Hood: Opportunity Hoarding and Segregation in the Age of Inequality” (forthcoming, Beacon 2021), is about the role of residential segregation in producing racial inequality.

Cashin’s 2014 book, “Place Not Race,” recommended radical reforms of selective college admissions to promote robust diversity; it was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction in 2015. Her 2004 book, “The Failures of Integration,” explored the persistence and consequences of race and class segregation. It was an Editors’ Choice in the New York Times Book Review. Cashin is also a three-time nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for non-fiction in 2005, 2009, and 2018.

She has published widely in academic journals and is a contributing editor for Politico Magazine. Cashin has also contributed book chapters and is a frequent radio and television commentator.

Cashin was born and raised in Huntsville, Alabama, where her parents were political activists. She lives in Washington D.C. with her husband and twin sons.