Faculty Profile
Anna R. Kirkland, PhD, JD
- Kim Lane Scheppele Collegiate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies
- Arthur F. Thurnau Professor
- Professor, Health Management and Policy
- Professor, Political Science
- Professor, Sociology
Professor Kirkland works on the law and politics of health discrimination, insurance
coverage, sexual harassment, and related topics. Professor Kirkland's ongoing research
project, funded by the National Science Foundation, is an investigation into the implementation
and politics of Section 1557, the non-discrimination clause of the Affordable Care
Act that protects patients from discrimination in health care settings, with a focus
on transgender discrimination.
Anna Kirkland is the Kim Lane Scheppele Collegiate Professor of Women’s and Gender
Studies at the University of Michigan. She is also an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor.
She received her law degree (2001) and Ph.D in Jurisprudence and Social Policy (2003)
from the University of California, Berkeley. She holds courtesy appointments with
Sociology, Political Science, and Health Management and Policy at Michigan. Prof.
Kirkland is a member of Michigan’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation
and served as a committee member on the National Academies panel charged with studying
sexual harassment in the STEM fields of academia. From 2017 to 2022 she directed the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, a unit of the UM Office of Research.
Prof. Kirkland’s third book, Health Care Civil Rights: How Discrimination Law Fails Patients will be published by the University of California Press in April 2024 and will be
available open access on the UC Press Luminos platform. Discrimination law could be
a powerful response to health inequalities in the U.S. But using civil rights law
in healthcare settings is difficult because our healthcare system is complex, fragmented,
and tuned to other priorities. The troubles with civil rights in health care reveal
deep divides and competing interests that reverberate through patient experiences,
insurance claims, and courtroom arguments. Prof. Kirkland explains what health care
civil rights are, how they are supposed to work to protect against discrimination
based on gender identity, how they work in practice at all levels, and how to strengthen
them. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and open access was
made possible by a TOME publishing grant (UM Library, LSA, and OVPR).
Prof. Kirkland is also a co-editor with stef shuster and Carla Pfeffer of the Social Science and Medicine Special Issue “Unequal Care: Trans Medicine and Health in Dangerous Times” (October
2024) and the author of Fat Rights: Dilemmas of Difference and Personhood (New York University Press, 2008) and Vaccine Court: The Law and Politics of Injury (New York University Press, 2016), co-editor with Jonathan Metzl of Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality (New York University Press, 2010), and co-editor with with Prof. Marie-Andree Jacob
at the University of Leeds, UK of a Research Handbook on Sociolegal Studies of Medicine and Health (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020).
Prof. Kirkland teaches courses on health discrimination at the law school and gender and the law and health policy in Women's and Gender Studies.
- PhD, Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, University of California, Berkeley, December 2003
- JD, University of California, Berkeley School of Law, May 2001
- MA, Department of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia, January 1997
- BA, Philosophy, Davidson College, May 1995. Phi Beta Kappa
- law and society
- law and politics of health
- antidiscrimination law
- health insurance
- gender and sexuality in contemporary U.S. law
- rights claiming in organizational cultures
Perspective—“Physicians as Political Pawns — The Texas Directive on Gender-Affirming Care and Other Moves,” New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 386, No. 16 (April 20, 2022) doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp2203746
"Health Insurance Rights and Access to Health Care for Trans People: The Social Construction of Medical Necessity,” with Shauhin Talesh and Angela Perone (December 2021). Online ahead of print: DOI: 10.1111/lasr.12575.
“Dropdown Rights: Categorizing Transgender Discrimination in Healthcare Technologies,” Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 289 (November 2021). Online ahead of print: doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114348
“Civil Rights as Patient Experience: How Healthcare Organizations Handle Discrimination Complaints,” with Mikell Hyman, Law and Society Review, Vol. 55 No. 2 (2021): 273-275. doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12554
Perspective, “Health Coverage and Care for Transgender People — Threats and Opportunities,” with Daphna Stroumsa, New England Journal of Medicine, December 12, 2020. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp2032453
Email: [email protected]
Office: 734-764-9537
Address:
204 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109