Patricia Williams was named a MacArthur fellow in 2000 for creating " ... a new form of legal writing and scholarship that integrates personal narrative, critical and literary theory, traditional legal doctrine, and empirical and sociological research." As a proponent of critical race theory, Williams used those literary techniques to probe the relationship between law and race in her book The Alchemy of Race and Rights. Ms. Magazine called the book, published in 1991, a "feminist classic of the last 20 years." Williams is the James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University. She earned a B.A. from Wellesley University and a J.D. from Harvard.