Northern Illinois University
College of Law

Assistant Professor Lauren E. Threatte ("Threet") teaches courses in criminal law, property law, sociolegal studies and gender justice. She began her teaching as Teaching Assistant for Professor Anita Hill at Brandeis University. Professor Threatte began her career at NIU in 2022 as the inaugural DEI Postdoctoral Fellow with the College of Law and Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality. Before coming to NIU, she performed social policy research and racial justice education and programming at Brandeis University during her doctoral studies.

Professor Threatte’s legal scholarship focuses on the Fourteenth Amendment and equal protection in the realms of anti-choice law, anti-discrimination law, and higher education policy. Her work involves applying critical theoretical lenses to formulate equal protection arguments for reproductive freedom, bodily autonomy, freedom of gender identity, and privilege-conscious admissions. Professor Threatte’s Ph.D. dissertation is titled, Breaking Ground: Building Critical Institutional Identity Theory to Transform DEI Construction & Ideology in Elite Higher Education. She has presented her scholarship at the 2020 annual conference of the Association for Public Policy and Management (APPAM) and the 2023 Junior Scholars Conference at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Before her entry into the academy, Professor Threatte practiced law. As an attorney, she represented indigent clients in criminal and civil litigation as an Assistant Public Defender for the Office of the Cook County Public Defender in Chicago. She also worked for the City of Chicago performing sexual harassment trainings and investigations and evaluating EEO policy. During law school, she clerked with Chicago Board of Education, Children’s Law Center of Los Angeles, and Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Loo. After earning her J.D., she was awarded the American Board of Trial Advocates Fellowship and clerked with Circuit Court Judge Victoria Chaney and two complex litigation law firms in Southern California.

Professor Threatte received a J.D. from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in Social Policy from The Heller School for Social Policy & Management at Brandeis, and a B.A. in communication studies (media production) from the University of Iowa. She is a member of the Society for American Law Teachers (SALT), Black Women Lawyers Association, Chicago Bar Association, Black Women’s Studies Association, and National Women’s Studies Association. She has also served as a board member and bar exam teacher for Minority Legal Education Resources (MLER).

Professor Threatte is the faculty advisor for the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) at NIU. She identifies as a Black American woman with diverse ancestry. She is an ally to the LGBTQ+ community, the disability community, and undocumented students.