Sheldon Bernard Lyke is an Associate Professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. He has served as a tenure-track faculty member at the Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University and at Whittier Law School. He has been a visiting professor at UC Irvine School of Law and Northwestern University School of Law.
Sheldon uses empirical methods, comparative law, and property theory to study the role of law and its institutions in the stratification of marginalized people. Some of his published work can be found in the Tulane Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, and the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law. In 2011, in recognition of the promise of his academic research, Sheldon was appointed as the inaugural Dorr Legg Law and Policy Fellow by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
Generally, his research interests focus on anti-discrimination law for racial and sexual minorities in a comparative context. His current research explores anti-affirmative action practices in higher education. His work is increasingly observing property law institutions (e.g., commons and charitable trusts, estates, and organizations) and their role in creating and ameliorating social inequality.
Sheldon has extensive teaching experience. He has taught a variety of law and social science courses at Saint Xavier University, Columbia College Chicago, and the Illinois Institute of Technology. At the University of Chicago, he served as a Lecturer and taught: Race as Property, Contemporary Global Issues, and Sexuality & Human Rights. The latter course was made possible after winning the 2003 University of Chicago Human Rights Lectureship. Before completing his Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Chicago, he received a JD from Northwestern University School of Law and his AB cum laude in Sociology from Princeton University.