Executive Director; Charlotte McDaniel Scholar |

Whittney Barth is the Executive Director and Charlotte McDaniel Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion. She also teaches courses in law and religion at Emory Law and serves as the concentration advisor for students pursuing the law and religion JD concentration. In her capacity as CSLR Executive Director, Barth creates new and plays a leadership role in existing CSLR-sponsored research projects, programs, and collaborations; spearheads the planning and hosting of public and private events consistent with the Center’s mission; recruits and leads CSLR staff, fellows, and visiting scholars; and manages the Center’s daily and strategic operations and fundraising. In Fall 2023, she co-hosted with Dr. John Bernau a season of the Center’s podcast, Interactions.

Barth joined CSLR after nearly three years as a litigator with nationally-recognized plaintiffs’ firm Sanford Heisler Sharp where she worked primarily on employment discrimination matters. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and was Executive Comments Editor of the Chicago Journal of International Law. Barth served as a teaching assistant for two undergraduate courses in the University of Chicago’s Laws, Letters, and Society Program and completed internships with several national advocacy organizations.

Prior to law school, Barth served for nearly five years as the Assistant Director of the Pluralism Project at Harvard University. She earned her Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School and her Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Miami University, where she completed a double major in Comparative Religion and American Studies and a minor in Political Science. While at Miami, Barth received the President’s Distinguished Service Award and the Provost Student Academic Achievement Award and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

Her research interests include, among other topics, the place and impact of religion in American legal history, the development of the ministerial exception within U.S. employment law, and the role of religious actors in the development of international human rights law. She has authored and co-authored pieces that appear in the Chicago Journal of International Law, the University of Illinois Law Review Online, Law360, and Bloomberg Law. She has co-written book chapters in volumes published by Oxford University and Georgetown University presses.

For more information, read our interview with Whittney from September 6, 2022.