From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)
Harding, Roberta M.
(born: 1960) Roberta M. Harding was the J. David Rosenberg Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky, retiring in 2021 after 20 years at the university; she maintains her connection to the Rosenbert College of Law as an Emeritus professor. Known nationally and internationally as an expert on the death penalty, Harding also helped launch the law school's nationally recognized Innocence Project Externship and for more than ten years was the program's faculty supervisor.When Harding joined the Law School in 1991, she was the first African American woman professor as well as the first legacy professor. She had graduated from Harvard Law School in 1986, where she earned her Juris Doctor degree.
Harding was the first American member of the Association Français de Criminologie, a criminology society in Paris, France. She also administered the faculty exchange program between the University of Kentucky School of Law and the Coventry University School of Law in West Midlands, England.
Roberta Harding's father, Robert E. Harding Jr., was the second African American graduate from the UK College of Law in 1957.
For more information see "Recently retired Professor Roberta M. Harding talks with UK Rosenberg Law Dean about her career and legacy," a University of Kentucky Law School webpage.
See also "A Game-based learning...And law?" by Lee Skallerup Bessette and Nicole L. Martin, a University of Kentucky Law School webpage; R. M. Harding, "Capital punishment as human sacrifice: a societal ritual as depicted in George Eliot's Adam Bede," Buffalo Law Review, vol. 48, no. 1, 2000, pp. 175-297, online at the Digital Commons @ the University of Buffalo School of Law; R. M. Harding and B. Thompson, "Prosecutorial Misconduct in Capital Cases in the Commonwealth of Kentucky: A Research Study 1976-2000," Kentucky Justice and Safety Research Bulletin, vol. 6, issue 1, April 2004 [entire issue], online at Encompass: a digital archive of the research, creative works, and history of Eastern Kentucky University; and other publications which she wrote and contributed to at UKnowledge.
