Stephen Menendian
Senior Legal Associate
614-247-6346
Menendian.2@osu.edu
Stephen Menendian is the senior legal research associate at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University. He directs and supervises the Institute’s legal advocacy, analysis and research, and manages many of the Institute’s most important projects. His principal areas of advocacy and scholarship include education, diversity, inclusion and affirmative action, civil rights and human rights, Constitutional law, the Fourteenth Amendment, jurisprudence, corporate power, structural racism, fair housing, and implicit bias.
Stephen trains lawyers, policymakers, businesses, and other institutions on diversity, inclusion, and affirmative action practices, policies, and compliance, including creative ways to improve diversity within bounds of law. In that capacity, Stephen has presented as part of the Ohio Department of Administrative Services Equal Opportunity Division’s training academy, and for the Moritz College of Law, the Graduate School of Education, the Multicultural Center, and on behalf of the Columbus Bar Association. Stephen is the lead author of the Kirwan Institute’s Affirmative Action guidebook.
Stephen directs the Institute’s education initiatives to promote diversity, reduce racial isolation, improve funding equity, and close the achievement gap in our nation’s public schools. He works closely with school districts and other educational entities to develop successful integrative measures and implement practices that produce educational excellence for all students. Stephen leads the Diversity Strategies for Successful Schools project with the State Board of Education of Ohio to develop statewide guidance to facilitate student diversity and reduce racial isolation. He currently is working with the State Board of Education to implement the Diversity Strategies Recommendations formally accepted by the Board in September. Stephen also works with educators to better manage and facilitate productive classroom conversations on race that enhance cultural fluency and improve inter-group relations. He co-authored the United States Supreme Court Amicus Brief for the Caucus for Structural Equity in the Seattle/Louisville K-12 integration cases to persuade the Court to sustain voluntary integration plans in the Seattle and Louisville school districts.
Recent scholarly publications include the forthcoming Beyond Public/Private: Understanding Excessive Corporate Prerogative for the University of Kentucky Law Journal (2011/2012), Remaking Law: Moving Beyond Enlightenment Jurisprudence for the St. Louis University Law Review (2010), Parents Involved: The Mantle of Brown, the Shadow of Plessy for the University of Louisville Law Review (2008), and Little Rock and the Legacy of Dred Scott for the St. Louis University Law Review (2008). Stephen is also the lead author of the Institute’s Structural Racism Report to the CERD Committee to improve US treaty compliance with the Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. He is a regular contributor to Race-Talk.org, and occasionally publishes on Huffington Post. Stephen regularly guest-lectures at the Moritz College of Law and the Graduate School of Education at the Ohio State University, and co-taught The History and Culture of Race and Law, a seminar at Wayne State University Law School, in the fall of 2009.
Stephen is a licensed attorney and is a member of the Ohio State Bar Association. He also serves on the board of directors for American Values Institute. He earned his J.D. from the Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University and a B. A. in Economics from Ohio University, where he graduated summa cum laude