Biography
Megan Ming Francis is the G. Alan and Barbara Delsman Associate Professor of Political Science and an Associate Professor of Law, Societies, and Justice at the University of Washington. During the 2021-22 academic year, she is also a Senior Democracy Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and a Racial Justice Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School. Francis specializes in the study of American politics, with broad interests in criminal punishment, Black political activism, philanthropy, and the post-civil war South. She is the author of the award winning book, Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State. She is currently working on two book projects: (1) ‘The Crimes of Capitalism’ examines the role of the criminal punishment system in the rebuilding of southern political and economic power after the Civil War and (2) ‘How to Fund a Movement’ examines the history and future of philanthropy’s complicated relationship with social movements. In addition, her research and commentary have been featured in numerous academic and public outlets, including a popular TED talk.
Francis is a proud alumnus of Seattle Public Schools, Rice University in Houston, and Princeton University where she received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics.
Research
Selected Research
- Megan Ming Francis. “Black Lives Matter from Wilson to Trump: Social Movements in APD” American PoliticalDevelopment and the Trump Presidency, eds Zachary Callen and Philip Rocco (Philadelphia, PA:University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020)
- Megan Ming Francis, John Fabian Witt. "Movement Capture or Movement Strategy? A Critical Race History Exchange on the Beginnings of Brown v. Board." Yale Journal of Law and Humanities. Vol 31, Issue 2, 2021: pp. 520-545
- Megan Ming Francis, Leah Wright Rigueur. "Black Lives Matter in Historical Perspective." Annual Review of Law and Social Science. Vol 17, 2021.
- Megan Ming Francis, Katherine Beckett. "The Origins of Mass Incarceration: The Racial Politics of Crime and Punishment in the Post-Civil Rights Era" Annual Review of Law and Social Science. Vol 16, 2020
- Megan Ming Francis. "The Price of Civil Rights: Black Politics, White Money, and Movement Capture." Law and Society Review, Vol. 53, Issue 1, March 2019.
- Megan Ming Francis. "The Strange Fruit of American Political Development." Politics, Groups, and Identities, Vol 6, Issue 1, 2018
- Megan Ming Francis, Michael C. Dawson. "Black Politics and the Neoliberal Racial Order" Public Culture, Vol. 28, Issue 1, 2015, pp. 23-62
- Megan Ming Francis. Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
- Megan Ming Francis. "Review of John Hagan’s ‘Who Are The Criminals? The Politics of Crime Policy from the Age of Roosevelt to the Age of Reagan." Perspectives on Politics, vol. 10, no. 4, 2012, pp. 1075-1076.
- Megan Ming Francis. "The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of America." Souls, Vol. 13, Issue 1, 2011, pp. 47-71.
- Megan Ming Francis. "The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of America." Souls, vol. 13, no. 1, 2011, pp. 46-71.