

Children’s Constitutional Rights Professor Tanya Washington
Children’s Constitutional Rights Professor Tanya Washington has been appointed the Marjorie F. Knowles Chair in Law. Her appointment went into effect on August 1, 2024.
The purpose of the Marjorie F. Knowles Chair in Law endowment is to promote and support the academic work of a distinguished professor whose scholarship, teaching and engagement with the wider community advances the mission of Georgia State University College of Law and exemplifies Marjorie F. Knowles’ lifelong commitment to legal education and the cause of justice.
“I am so excited about this prestigious chair and the opportunity it presents to continue Marjorie’s legacy of impactful research, scholarship, advocacy, and teaching. I am grateful for the support this chair provides to amplify my body of work, which is focused on ensuring the law serves to improve the lived experiences of individuals and communities,” said Washington.
Professor Washington has served as a professor of law at Georgia State University College of Law for 21 years. Her teaching has focused on students’ success and professional development, and her research and scholarship has advanced justice for many.
Washington’s scholarship and dedicated service is inspired by the same commitment to legal education and justice that animated Dean Emeritus Knowles’ life work, for which this chair was created.
“[My aunt] would certainly be happy to have such a qualified and experienced person [especially a woman] serving in this position and carrying on the never-ending fight for gender and racial equality and justice. The students and faculty at Georgia State Law will benefit greatly from [Professor Washington’s] influence and impact at a time when it is sorely needed in this world,” said Cooper Knowles (J.D. ’99), nephew of the late Dean Emeritus Marjorie F. Knowles.
Washington’s work has influenced the bench and Bar, informed jurisprudential outcomes and policy, shaped legal pedagogy, and improved law students’ academic success and performance on the bar exam. Her children’s rights research and scholarship has taken the form of law review articles published in law journals across the nation. Her publications also include a family law coursebook in its third edition, several book chapters, and co-authored amicus briefs filed in state and federal appellate cases and in United States Supreme Court cases. Most notably, her co-authored amicus brief in the Supreme Court’s landmark case, Obergefell v. Hodges, was cited in the majority opinion in 2015, and reflects 10 years of research and scholarship focused on defining an enforceable children’s constitutional right to a family and to relationships with their parents.
Her research and scholarship in the space of children’s rights led to a historic $2.1 million grant by an anonymous donor in 2023. In addition, Professor Washington has been a co-investigator on three grants from Andrew W. Mellon, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Center Parc Credit Union.
The considerable depth and breadth of Professor Washington’s international contributions and profile are reflected in her comparative research and scholarship in the form of articles and book chapters, invited keynote presentations, including at New York University in Berlin, Germany and before the Brazilian Supreme Court in Rio de Janeiro.

Professor Tanya Washington embraces American civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis
Washington has also taught in summer study abroad programs, across three continents in Nanjing, China, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Linz, Austria. She has also served as the director of the John Lewis Fellowship Program, an international social justice initiative, funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.
“I look forward to the work [she] will do in this position . . . [while working] towards eradicating inequality and discrimination. My Uncle Ralph, (Marjorie's husband) said that those who want to bring oppression and division upon us will never stop. And Marjorie would always respond, ‘neither will we.’ I stand with [Professor Washington] in solidarity and am uplifted knowing that people like [her] are carrying the torch,” Knowles said.