May 20, 2010 2:46PM 

# Law Professor Confesses ‘I’m a Criminal’ 

By [Tim Lynch](https://www.cato.org/people/tim-lynch) 

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Law Professor Michelle Alexander:

> Lately, I’ve been telling people that I’m a criminal. This shocks most people, since I don’t “look like” one. I’m a fairly clean-cut, light-skinned black woman with fancy degrees from Vanderbilt University and Stanford Law School. I’m a law professor and I once clerked for a U.S. Supreme Court Justice — not the sort of thing you’d expect a criminal to do.
> 
> 
> What’d you get convicted of? people ask. Nothing, I say. Well, then why do you say you’re a criminal? Because I am a criminal, I say, just like you.

Read the [whole thing](http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/18/alexander.who.am.i/index.html?hpt=C2). (H/T [Sentencing Law and Policy](http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/)). Judge Alex Kozinski and Misha Tseytlin make a similar point in an essay in my [book](http://store.cato.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=&pid=1441418) entitled, “You’re (Probably) a Federal Criminal.”

More [here](https://www.cato.org/2009/12/09/are-you-a-criminal-maybe-you-are-and-dont-know-it/) and [here](https://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v32n1/cpr32n1-3.html).

##### Related Tags 

[Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) 

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