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About Bethany
Bethany Berger is the Allan D. Vestal Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Iowa College of Law, holding a secondary appointment in the Department of History. She began her appointment at Iowa Law in August 2024. Berger is one of the nation's leading experts in federal Indian law, property law, and legal history. Previously, she served as the Wallace Stevens Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law. Her academic career includes earlier positions at the University of Connecticut School of Law, Wayne State University Law School, and a return to Connecticut in 2006. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School as the Oneida Indian Nation Professor on several occasions and at Iowa Law School in 2005. From 2005 to 2011, Berger was a Judge for the Southwest Inter-Tribal Court of Appeals, serving tribes in the southwestern United States.
Berger earned a BA from Wesleyan University in 1990 and a JD from Yale Law School in 1996. She is the co-author of the leading casebook American Indian Law: Cases and Commentary (3rd ed. 2015) and Property Law: Rules, Policies, and Practices. She also serves as a co-author and editorial board member of Felix S. Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law, the foundational treatise in the field. Her scholarly articles have appeared in leading journals, including "Red: Racism and the American Indian" (UCLA Law Review, 2008, 202 citations), "Justice and the Outsider: Jurisdiction over Nonmembers in Tribal Legal Systems" (Arizona State Law Journal, 2005, 165 citations), "It's Not About the Fox: The Untold History of Pierson v. Post" (Duke Law Journal, 2005, 100 citations), "Power Over This Unfortunate Race: Race, Politics and Indian Law in United States v. Rogers" (William & Mary Law Review, 2003, 100 citations), "Reconciling Equal Protection and Federal Indian Law" (California Law Review, 2010, 77 citations), and "Williams v. Lee and the Debate over Indian Equality" (Michigan Law Review, 2011, 50 citations). Berger's work has been excerpted in casebooks, cited in Supreme Court briefs, and used in congressional testimony. She has given over 120 invited presentations at law schools, universities, conferences, and symposia. Among her honors, Berger was elected to membership in the American Law Institute in 2014 and received the Perry Zirkel '76 Distinguished Teaching Award from the UConn Law Class of 2024.
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