Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Shaakirrah Sanders, professor of law at the University of Idaho, never thought she would end up in Idaho.
At the end of eighth grade, Sanders was offered a scholarship from Michigan State University focusing on law. Named after one of the first Black federal judges, a civil rights advocate and fellow Detroit native, Sanders took her opportunity to be one of the same. This was always the plan, Sanders said.
“All the women in my family were single parents to be quite honest, and they ran their own households,” Sanders said. “I think that model of independence was ingrained in me in the same way that other models are ingrained in some people where they grew up.”
Her mother and grandparents grew up in “Jim Crow America” and went to segregated schools. Opportunities for women at that time didn’t exist, which was always hard, Sanders said.
“Growing up, it just made me want to be able to do some of the things they couldn’t do, like go to college and get an education and have a career,” Sanders said. “My mother and my grandmother, they always encouraged me. I could do that type of stuff. And I thought, okay, if they can’t do it then I’m going to do it.”
While practicing law in Seattle, Washington, Sanders fell in love with teaching. The potential to work in academia presented itself when Elizabeth Brandt, a UI law faculty member and one of the first tenured women at the institution, retired.
“I remember thinking, ‘Idaho, I don’t know… too much about Idaho,’ and it just didn’t occur to me that this is where I would end up,” Sanders said.
Sanders is the only full-time professor of color on the law school faculty and one of a handful of African American full-time professors in the entire university.
Sanders said she was shell shocked when she received tenure.
“There’s a practical part of you that’s like, you just did the work and you put your head down and you wanted to just achieve tenure, (which) was just such a huge thing and then to do full professorship,” Sanders said. “(It) takes a lot of concentration, a lot of hard work and the ability to overcome challenges in other areas that can really derail your success.”
Sanders served as chair for the Association of American Law Schools Section of Constitutional Law and currently chairs for the Idaho State Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
She’s currently working on a study on Native American voting rights in Idaho with the commission.
“People don’t listen to Native Americans and Indigenous folks as much as we should,” Sanders said. “What’s been designated as tribal land now, and to see those communities is very important to me and very exciting to hear the voices of people in Native American communities.”
The goal of this study is to build relationships with tribal members, Sanders said.
Although being in Idaho wasn’t originally part of Sander’s plans, she is grateful to be teaching law here.
“The idea that I have a front row seat to modern constitutional law, while it’s being made, is, you know, just so awesome,” Sanders said.
Emily Pearce can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @Emily _ A_ Pearce.