Biography
A scholar whose research has explored work-family policy, gender theory, and contingent workers' rights, Keith Cunningham-Parmeter focuses his writing on emerging theories of employment discrimination. Prior to joining the law faculty at Willamette University in 2006, he represented migrant farmworkers as a Skadden Fellow with the Oregon Law Center. While there, Professor Cunningham-Parmeter was lead counsel in a wage and hour class action brought on behalf of food processing employees, which resulted in the largest judgment to date for agricultural workers in Oregon.
Professor Cunningham-Parmeter graduated from Stanford Law School with distinction and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He was the first-place winner of two writing competitions in law school and was selected as a Stanford Law School Public Interest Fellow. During law school, he worked at the East Palo Alto Community Law Project and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, providing focused legal services to immigrant communities and low-wage workers.
Upon graduation, Professor Cunningham-Parmeter served for two years as law clerk to Chief Judge Ancer Haggerty of the US District Court for the District of Oregon. Prior to law school, he worked as a high school teacher in the Mississippi Delta as a member of Teach for America.
Professor Cunningham-Parmeter received the Robert L. Misner Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship and the Jerry E. Hudson Award for Excellence in Teaching and Leadership. Willamette law students have previously selected Professor Cunningham-Parmeter as Professor of the Year. His publications have appeared in leading law journals and have been cited in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, and by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.