Ruth Okediji

Okediji received her LL.M. and S.J.D. from Harvard Law School. Prior to that, she received an LL.B. from the University of Jos.

Okediji had a long teaching career before coming to Harvard Law in 2017. From 2003–2017, she taught at the University of Minnesota Law School where she was the William L. Prosser Professor of Law and appointed as a McKnight Presidential Professor.[5] Prior to her tenure at Minnesota, she was the Edith Gaylord Presidential Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She also held visiting professorships at Duke University School of Law, the University of Haifa Law School, the University of St. Thomas School of Law, and the University of Tilburg Law School.[6]

Okediji has been criticized for her role in suppressing student free speech and racial justice organizing. As acting Administrative Board chair at Harvard Law, she was a leader of the Administrative Board's 2019-2020 investigation into students who participated in a silent protest calling for Harvard to divest its endowment from companies tied to the prison industry.[7] In a petition addressed to Okediji which garnered over a 1000 signatures, the investigation was criticized as being opaque and arbitrary, disproportionate to the student acts of distributing flyers and silently holding up signs, and racially targeted at student protestors of color.[8][9] The incident garnered media coverage and attention in the Harvard community and the legal community.[10][11][12] The incident has been examined as an example of Harvard Law School's pattern of suppression of student speech for racial justice, under Okediji's tenure as Administrative Board chair.[13]

Okediji has not made public comment on her views of Harvard's financial holdings in the prison industries.

• Bagley, Margo A.; Okediji, Ruth L.; Erstling, Jay A. (2013). International Patent Law and Policy - American Casebook Series. St. Paul, MN. ISBN 978-0-314-28787-8. OCLC 842883961.
• Okediji, Ruth L.; Bagley, Margo A. (2014). Patent Law in Global Perspective. New York. ISBN 978-0-19-936110-6. OCLC 881476206.
• Cimoli, Mario; Dosi, Giovanni; Maskus, Keith E.; Okediji, Ruth L.; Reichman, Jerome H. (2014). Stiglitz, Joseph E. (ed.). Intellectual Property Rights : Legal and Economic Challenges for Development (First ed.). Oxford: Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-966075-9. OCLC 879770440.
• Copyright Law in an Age of Limitations and Exceptions. New York, NY. 2017. ISBN 978-1-107-13237-5. OCLC 927166124.
• Helfer, Laurence R; Land, Molly K; Okediji, Ruth L; Reichman, J. H; Oxford University Press (2017). The World Blind Union guide to the Marrakesh Treaty: facilitating access to books for print-disabled individuals. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-067964-4. OCLC 1117298020.

Live drawing of her keynote at the Creative Commons Global Summit, 2018.

• Professor Ruth Okediji talks on Copyright and Public Interest at the IFLA Presidential Meeting, 2011.