Natalie Nanasi
Director of the Judge Elmo B. Hunter Legal Center for Victims of Crimes Against Women and Associate Professor of Law
Full-time faculty
Natalie Nanasi is an Associate Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Judge Elmo B. Hunter Legal Center for Victims of Crimes Against Women.
In the Hunter Clinic, Professor Nanasi supervises students’ representation of survivors of intimate partner violence, human trafficking, and sexual abuse in a broad range of legal matters. She also oversees students as they conduct systemic policy advocacy and community education to find long-term solutions to the problem of violence against women. Professor Nanasi's research explores the intersection of gender and feminist theory with the Second Amendment and immigration law. Her scholarship has appeared in numerous journals and law reviews, including the Ohio State Law Review, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, Harvard Law & Policy Review, Wake Forest Law Review, Temple Law Review, Villanova Law Review, and Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.
Prior to arriving at SMU, Professor Nanasi was a Practitioner-in-Residence and the Director of the Domestic Violence Clinic at American University, Washington College of Law (WCL). Before joining the faculty at WCL, she was the Senior Immigration Attorney and Pro Bono Coordinator at the Tahirih Justice Center, where she represented immigrant women and girls fleeing human rights abuses such as female genital cutting, domestic and sexual violence, forced marriage, and honor crimes. Professor Nanasi also served as counsel in the landmark asylum case of Matter of A-T- and as an Equal Justice Works Fellow from 2007-2009, with a focus on the U visa. Prior to her work at Tahirih, she was a law clerk to the Honorable Lynn Leibovitz of the District of Columbia Superior Court.
Professor Nanasi received her J.D. from Georgetown Law, where she earned an Equal Justice Foundation fellowship for her work at the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center in New Delhi, India, and assisted in the representation of HIV-positive immigrants at Whitman Walker Clinic Legal Services. Prior to her legal career, Professor Nanasi was a rape crisis counselor and supported single teenage mothers at a transitional residence facility in Boston.
Area of expertise
- Clinical Legal Education
- Humanitarian Immigration Law
- Domestic Violence Law
- Gender and the Law
- Second Amendment
Education
B.A., Brandeis University
J.D., Georgetown Law
Courses
Crimes Against Women (Hunter) Clinic
Asylum and Refugee Law
Articles
Reconciling Domestic Violence Protections and the Second Amendment, 59 Wake Forest Law Review 131 (2024)
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New Approaches to Disarming Domestic Abusers, 67 Villanova Law Review 651 (2022)
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Patriarchy's Link to Intimate Partner Violence: Applications to Survivors’ Asylum Claims, Violence Against Women (2022) (with Dr. Daniel Saunders, Dr. Tina Jiwatram-Negrón, and Iris Cardenas)
Death of the Particular Social Group, 260 NYU Review of Law and Social Change 309 (2021)
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Disarming Domestic Abusers, 559 Harvard Law & Policy Review 608 (2020)
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Are Domestic Abusers Terrorists? Rhetoric, Reality, and Asylum Law, 91 Temple Law Review 215 (2019)
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The U Visa's Failed Promise for Survivors of Domestic Violence, 29 Yale Journal of Law & Feminism 273 (2018)
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Domestic Violence Asylum and the Perpetuation of the Victimization Narrative, 78 Ohio State Law Journal 733 (2017)
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An “I Do” I Choose: How the Fight for Marriage Access Supports a Per Se Finding of Persecution for Asylum Cases Based on Forced Marriage, 28 Columbia Journal of Gender & Law 48 (2014)
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Book chapters
, in (Cambridge University Press 2020) (with S. Pritchett)
, in (NYU Press 2019)
Other publications
A Library's Legacy, 71 SMU Law Review 27 (2018)
Blog Post, , IntLawGrrls (July 23, 2015)
Lessons from Matter of A-T-: Guidance for Practitioners Litigating Asylum Cases Involving a Spectrum of Gender-Based Harms, from Female Genital Mutilation to Forced Marriage and Beyond, 12-02 Immigration Briefings 1 (February 2012)
, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (October 2009)
New Help for Immigrant Victims of Sexual Assault, Sexual Assault Report (February/March 2009), reprinted in Family & Intimate Partner Violence Quarterly (Winter 2011)
Media
Sufficiently Analogous, Interview, (podcast) (July 2024)
Oxford Human Rights Hub, Op-Ed, (June 2024)
Ms., Op-Ed, (June 2024)
NPR, featured on (June 2024)
CBS Texas, quoted in (November 2023)
FOX 4, quoted in (November 2023)
ABC 8, quoted in (November 2023)
The Hill, Op-Ed, (November 2023)
Houston Chronicle, Op-Ed, (November 2023) (with Kelly Roskam)
ProPublica, quoted in (November 2023)
Law 360, quoted in (November 2022)
Dallas Morning News, quoted in (November 2021)
The Guardian, quoted in (October 2021)
Reveal News, quoted in How American Gun Laws are Failing Domestic Violence Victims (October 2021)
Fault Lines, Interview, (October 2021)
Spectrum News, Interview, SMU Law Professor Says Legal System is 'Changing Before Students' Eyes (September 2021)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Interview, (July 2021)
CBS DFW, Interview, (June 2021)
KRGV5 News, Interview, (June 2021)
The Hill,Op-ed, (March 2021)
Dallas Morning News, Op-ed, (January 2021)
Dallas Morning News, quoted in (September 2020)