Isra Syed
Isra Syed is a writer and scholar of American law & religion. She is currently a doctoral student in the Department of American Studies at Yale University.
About
Isra Syed is a writer and scholar based in New Haven, CT. She is currently a doctoral student in the Department of American Studies at Yale University. Her research focuses on the historical relationship between property law, immigration, and American religious subjectivity, with a special interest in Islam in the U.S.
Isra holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. in History from Yale College. She previously clerked for the Hon. Judge Morgan Christen on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, as well as for Judge Sessions in the District Court for the District of Vermont. In law school, she served as a founding editor of the LPE Blog.
In addition to her academic work, Isra is also a writer of fiction and essays. She writes a quarterly newsletter of constructive theology called Night Journey.
Academic Work
Religiously Grounded: Muslim Legal Subjectivity in the Navigating Differences Letter, Journal for the American Academy of Religion (forthcoming 2026).
Laboratories of Suffering: Toward Democratic Welfare Governance, in Holes in the Safety Net: Federalism and Poverty 40 (Ezra Rosser ed., 2019) (with Monica Bell, Andrea Taverna, & Dhruv Aggarwal).
Public Scholarship
A Community Based Approach to Anti-Discrimination, Alchemist Magazine, June 3, 2021.
Neoliberal Encasement Infrastructure: The Case of International Organization Sovereign Immunity, Law and Political Economy Blog, April 12, 2019.
