Rate My Professor Karen Glover

Karen Glover is a Professor of Sociology at California State University, San Marcos (CSUSM), where she has served on the faculty since Fall 2007. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Texas A&M University in 2007. Affiliated with the College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences (CHABSS), Glover specializes in research on racial profiling, law enforcement, and inequality. Her scholarly inquiries critique the epistemological, methodological, theoretical, and substantive shortcomings of mainstream racial profiling studies, particularly how race is often reduced to a variable in analyses dominated by white male researchers lacking sufficient race consciousness.

In 2009, Glover authored the book Racial Profiling: Research, Racism, and Resistance, published by Rowman & Littlefield. The volume is structured in two parts: the first part dissects limitations in existing literature on racial profiling, while the second analyzes interview data from people of color who experienced profiling, revealing its profound effects on their sense of belonging, rights, protections, and fostering resistance against injustice. Glover's interest in this topic stemmed from her own encounter with police misconduct, which prompted deeper examination of state accountability and disproportionate impacts on Black and Brown communities. She teaches courses focused on the police and criminal legal system in America, emphasizing racial profiling. Her curriculum includes discussions of Black Lives Matter, historical parallels to the Black Panther Party, and California legislation such as Assembly Bill 953 (Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015, or RIPA), which mandates demographic data collection on law enforcement contacts to inform policy against biased practices, and AB 392 (2019 California Act to Save Lives, or Stephon Clark law), which establishes a stricter 'necessity' standard for deadly force. Glover contributes to public discourse through CSUSM's Ask the Expert platform, addressing persistent traffic stop disparities, anti-immigrant surveillance, police brutality amplified by social media, and abolitionist visions like defunding police through investments in housing, employment, education, and community alternatives to punitive systems. She also serves as affiliate faculty in Ethnic Studies.