Cheryl Hanna

Professor Cheryl Hanna is an expert on constitutional law, criminal law, the United States Supreme Court, and women and the law. Much of her scholarship focuses on the social status of women and girls in America. At Vermont Law School, Professor Hanna has taught Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Evidence, Women and the Law, and a seminar on The Seven Deadly Sins. She is also active in training leaders throughout Vermont and elsewhere on ethics and decision making.

Professor Hanna received her BA degree in sociology and anthropology, magna cum laude, from Kalamazoo College in 1988 and her JD degree, cum laude, from Harvard University in 1992. Upon graduation, she served on the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, and then as an assistant state's attorney in Baltimore City before joining the Vermont Law School faculty in 1994. She has also been a visiting professor at the University of California–Hastings College of the Law. Among her many accomplishments, Professor Hanna received the Irving R. Kaufman Fellowship in 1993 for young lawyers who hold significant promise in public interest lawyering. In 1998, she received the Vermont Women in Higher Education's Margaret R. Williams Emerging Professional Award, and the Vermont Law School Student Bar Association Faculty Award the following year. In 2001–2002, she was a fellow at the Snelling Center for Government, Vermont Leadership Institute. In 2004, she received the first Phenomenal Woman Award given by the Vermont Women's Law Group, as well as an honorary Schweitzer Fellowship for work with the Schweitzer Fellowship Program. Active in both the local and national legal communities, Professor Hanna has served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools' Section of Law and the Social Sciences, as an advisor to the Vermont Judicial College, and as a member of the Vermont Gender Bias Study Implementation Task Force. She has also served on the board of trustees of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, the Girl Scout Council of Vermont, and on the policy advisory committee of the Snelling Center for Government. In recognition of her contributions to the state, Professor Hanna has been nominated as an associate member of the Center for Research on Vermont at the University of Vermont. Her work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court, as well as by the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, Glamour Magazine, and Fox News. Professor Hanna is a commentator for Vermont Public Radio and WCAX-TV 3 News (Burlington, Vermont).