David D. Troutt

David Dante Troutt is Distinguished Professor of Law and Derrick A. Bell Scholar at Rutgers Law School-Newark where he also founded and directs the Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity (CLiME). He emphasizes using law and interdisciplinary study in order to understand structural inequality and to formulate legal and policy reform strategies. Troutt is the author of five books: Reckoning the Racial Reckoning: Awareness and Accountability after George Floyd (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press), The Price of Paradise: The Costs of Inequality and a Vision for a More Equitable America, The Monkey Suit: Short Fiction on African Americans and Justice, After the Fall: Black Intellectuals Explore the Meaning of Hurricane Katrina, and a novel, The Importance of Being Dangerous. His public scholarship on equitable growth, housing and structural inequality/civil rights is available at www.clime.rutgers.edu

Publications:

• David Dante Troutt, Urban Renewal’s Grandchildren: Remedying the Persistent Effects of Post-War Race Planning, 52 Fordham Urb. L.J. 91 (2024).
• Rewriting Racial Equality: The State of Civil Rights Law under Trump, with Anna Griffith, a CLiME publication, November 14, 2025, https://www.clime.rutgers.edu/publications-filtered/rewriting-racial-equality-under-trump
• Taking the Knee No More: Police Accountability and the Structure of Racism, 79 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1765 (2023)

Previous Organizations: 

• Harvard Law School 
• Stanford University 

Accomplishments:

• Finalist for the 2015 C. Wright Mills Award
• Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2007

Upcoming Projects:

• Reckoning the Racial Reckoning: Backlash and Accountability after George Floyd (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press, August 2026)

Social and racial justice concerns appear directly and indirectly in my work. Sometimes, race is centered in a legal analysis of constitutional change or explicit race policies. Other times, race is the context and consequence in studies of structural inequality.