Faculty and Administration Profiles

Miranda Johnson

About

Miranda Johnson is a clinical professor of law and the director of the Education Law and Policy Institute. She oversees the law school’s curriculum, events, research, and programs related to education law and teaches doctrinal and experiential learning courses in education law and child and family law. She also leads a team of attorneys and law students who provide legal information and representation in school discipline, special education, and school bullying matters.

Professor Johnson’s expertise and analysis on education law and policy issues has been featured in various media, including WBEZ (Chicago’s NPR affiliate), Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and The Hill. Her areas of research and scholarship include school discipline and school policing reform and race and disability equity. She has presented at national and local conferences and trainings on topics related to education law, school discipline, restorative justice, and law teaching.

Professor Johnson previously served as a law clerk to the Honorable Allyne R. Ross, United States District Judge, in the Eastern District of New York. She then worked as a staff attorney at Advocates for Children of New York (AFC), an organization promoting access to quality educational services for New York City schoolchildren. At AFC, she represented parents of students with disabilities in administrative proceedings to obtain appropriate educational services. She also represented parents and students in federal class action lawsuits to remedy systemic legal violations with respect to education in New York City.

Prior to law school, Professor Johnson was a Fulbright Scholar in Tanzania, where she conducted research related to gender, democratization and development.  She also taught social studies at an innovative residential high school serving students who had not succeeded in traditional settings.

Professor Johnson completed a joint law and policy degree program, obtaining a JD, magna cum laude, from New York University School of Law and a Master in Public Affairs from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.  At NYU, she was a Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest Scholar and a Notes Editor for the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics. 

When she graduated from NYU, she received the Butler Memorial Award for unusual distinction in scholarship, character, and professional activities.  In 2002, Dartmouth College honored her with the Martin Luther King Jr. Social Justice Award for alumni.

Degrees

AB, magna cum laude, Dartmouth College, 1997
MPA, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 2006
JD, magna cum laude, New York University School of Law, 2006

Professional & Community Affiliations

Executive Committee Member, Section on Education Law, Association of American Law Schools, January 2020 – present (Chair, January 2023 – January 2024)

Founding Member and Steering Committee Member, Transforming School Discipline Collaborative (March 2015 – August 2020)

Member, Attorney General’s Advisory Committee on Special Education, and Co-Chair, School-to-Prison Pipeline Subcommittee (January 2015 – August 2020)

Member, School Discipline Working Group (February 2012 – present)

Courses Taught

Child, Family, and the State
Education Law and Policy
Education Law Practicum
Professional Identity Formation
Legal Issues in School Discipline
Special Education Dispute Resolution
Student Disciplinary Hearing Workshop

Selected Publications

Professor Miranda Johnson’s SSRN webpage

Discipline Disparities Among Students with Disabilities: Creating Equitable Environments. Teachers College Press, May 2022. (Co-editor, with Pamela Fenning). [book]

Promoting statewide discipline reform through professional development with administrators, Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 64:2, 172-182 (2020) (with Kelsie N. Reed, Pamela Fenning, & Ashley Mayworm). [article]

A Place for Bullying Protections in School Lawyering, American Bar Association Children’s Rights Litigation Committee (Winter 2020) (with Jackie Ross, B. Alvarez, and Theodore Gelderman).

Just Another School?: Strengthening Legal Protections for Students Facing Disciplinary Transfers, 33 Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy 1 (2019) (with James Naughton). [article]

Making a Systemic Difference: Working with the Changing System, in Implicit Bias in Schools: A Practitioner's Guide (Gina L. Gullo, Kelly Capatosto, and Cheryl Staats), Routledge (December 2018) (with Pamela Fenning). [book chapter]

Developing Prevention-Oriented Discipline Codes of Conduct, 36 Children's Legal Rights Journal (2016) (with Pamela Fenning). [article]

Free To Learn: A Rights Based Approach to Universal Primary Education in Kenya (Feb. 2006) (with Andrew Egan, et. al). [report]

Promoting Women's Access to Politics and Decision-making: The Role of TGNP and Other Advocacy Groups in the 2000 General Elections in Tanzania.  Dar es Salaam: TGNP (2004) (with Aggripina Mosha). [book] 

Key Strategies and Tools Adopted to Take Forward the Gender Budget Initiative (GBI) in Tanzania in Gender Budget Analysis in Tanzania 1997-2000. Dar es Salaam: TGNP (2003) (with Mary Rusimbi).

Governance and Civil Society Interventions in Land Reform Processes in Tanzania, Land Research Paper Series. Harare: MWENGO (2003) (with Deus Kibamba).