Founder and Director
The Center for the Study of Law and Antisemitism (CSLA) is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that promotes research and instruction at the intersection of law and antisemitism. It sponsors the annual Law vs. Antisemitism Conference and Antisemitism and the Law casebook. CSLA Director Robert Katz is Professor of Law at Indiana University McKinney School of Law.
Law vs. Antisemitism Conference. Professor Katz and adjunct Professor of Law Diane (Klein) Kemker co-founded the annual Law vs. Antisemitism Conference in 2022. They, along with professors at the host schools, co-organized the annual conference in 2022, 2023, and 2024.The 4th annual conference will be held at UCLA School of Law on March 23-24, 2025. The 5th annual conference will be held at Cardozo School of Law.
Antisemitism and the Law casebook. Professor Katz is the author of Antisemitism and the Law, the first casebook on the subject, to be published by Carolina Academic Press in Spring 2025 and available for course adoption in Fall semester 2025. He recently published "How Antisemitism Infects the Law" in the ABA's Human Rights magazine, which previews some of the casebook's themes.
Professor Katz is a member of the ABA Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, a Senior Research Fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's Center for Antisemitism Research, a member of the Academic Advisory Board for Justice (the legal magazine of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists), and a member of the Advisory Board of Global Jewry. As the advisor for Jews & Allies, a student group, he created the program for its International Holocaust Remembrance Day Symposium, held on January 25, 2024.
Professor Katz earned a J.D. with honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as a comments editor on the University of Chicago Law Review and was awarded the prize for best law review comments. He also holds an A.B. magna cum laude in Government from Harvard College, where he was awarded the Philo Sherman Bennett prize for the best senior thesis discussing the principles of free government. He served as a clerk to the Honorable Stephen G. Breyer, when he served as Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Before joining the IU McKinney faculty in 2001, Professor Katz was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School and served as a trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division's Federal Programs Branch.
As a civil rights advocate, Professor Katz served as co-counsel in Stafford v. Carter (S.D. Ind.), a class action brought on behalf of Indiana inmates infected with the hepatitis C virus. The Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) settled the case by agreeing to pay more than $80 million to treat infected inmates. Professor Katz was also co-counsel in Lee v. Pence (S.D. Ind.) which successfully challenged Indiana’s ban on same-sex marriage. In March 2015, he testified in opposition to proposed amendments to the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act before the Indiana General Assembly’s House Judiciary Committee, objecting that it authorized discrimination against LGBTQ individuals. He serves on the Government Affairs Committee of the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), offering guidance on issues such as hate crimes and reproductive freedom.
Professor Katz regularly joins fellow Jewish lawyers in Indianapolis for lunch at Shapiro’s Delicatessen.