Executive Director, Center for the Study of Law and Religion |

Whittney Barth joined CSLR as Executive Director in August 2022. In this capacity, she manages CSLR operations, recruit and lead CSLR staff, post-doctoral fellows, visiting scholars, and student fellows, create new and support existing CSLR-sponsored research projects and programs, and organize public and private events consistent with the Center’s mission. As the Center marks its fortieth anniversary in 2022, Barth works closely with CSLR faculty to strategize for the Center’s future and plays a leading role in implementing that vision.

Barth joins 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 received her Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School and her Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Miami University, where she earned 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!