Sarah Song

Sarah Song is a political theorist with a special interest in issues of democracy, citizenship, migration, and inequality. She teaches courses in political and legal philosophy, citizenship and migration studies, feminist theory and jurisprudence, and First Amendment law. Her full-time appointment is in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy (JSP) PhD Program at Berkeley Law School and the undergraduate Legal Studies Program. She welcomes Political Science graduate students to cross-register for her courses at the Law School and undergraduates to take her Legal Studies courses.

Her first book, Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multiculturalism (Cambridge University Press, 2007), explores the challenges of religious and cultural diversity, focusing on tensions between multiculturalism and women's rights. The book was awarded the 2008 Ralph Bunche Award by the American Political Science Association. 

Her second book, Immigration and Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2018), examines the values and principles that shape and ought to shape public debate about immigration. The book was reviewed in The New Yorker here.

Song received a BA in Social Studies from Harvard, MPhil in Political Philosophy from Oxford, and a PhD in Political Science from Yale. Prior to coming to Berkeley, she was Assistant Professor of Political Science and Affiliated Faculty in Philosophy and Women's & Gender Studies at M.I.T. for four years. She has been awarded fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

From 2015 to 2020, Song served as director of Berkeley Law's Kadish Center for Morality, Law, and Public Affairs, which together with the Political Science and Philosophy Departments sponsors the Workshop in Law, Philosophy, and Political Theory.