Tammi Walker
Tammi D. Walker is a Professor of Law and Psychology at the University of Arizona, where she has taught since 2018. A former litigator and trained research psychologist, she studies how institutions make decisions about people — and how those decisions shape identity, legitimacy, opportunity, and belonging. Her work spans three areas: sexual misconduct, consent, and institutional legitimacy; youth, development, and digital permanence in juvenile justice; and access and inclusion in the legal profession. Drawing on experimental methods and doctrinal analysis, she shows how seemingly neutral legal procedures often rest on assumptions misaligned with human behavior — and proposes evidence-informed alternatives. Professor Walker received her PhD in Psychology from the University of Virginia and her JD from Columbia Law School, and clerked for the Honorable Gerald Bruce Lee on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Representative Publications
- Title IX Reimagined: The Power of Principles-Based Governance, 93 U. Cin. L. Rev. 739 (2025). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5615932
- Consent Absent Consensus: A Principles-Based Framework for Institutional Sexual Consent Policies, 128 W. Va. L. Rev. 157 (2026).
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6443740 - Digitally Branded: The Developmental Catastrophe of Juvenile Sex Offender Registries, 60 U. Rich. L. Rev. 385 (2026).
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5272823 - Fixing What's Wrong with How Universities Adjudicate Sexual Misconduct Claims: How Procedural Change Can Encourage Cooperation, 2018 Wis. L. Rev. 111.
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3034779
- Complete List of Publications
Research Interests
- Law and psychology; procedural justice, institutional legitimacy, and empirical legal studies
- Sexual misconduct, consent, and institutional legitimacy — campus adjudication, procedural fairness, and principles-based governance of Title IX
- Youth, development, and digital permanence — juvenile justice, sex-offender registration, and a developmental "right to be forgotten"
- Access and inclusion in the legal profession — diversity in legal education and the judiciary, and workplace climate
Education
- Ph.D. University of Virginia
- M.Sc., Social and Cultural Psychology London School of Economics
- J.D. Columbia Law School