He is the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times photographer Ozier Muhammad and Dr. Kimberly Muhammad-Earl, a teacher and administrator at the Chicago Board of Education.
[11] On October 2, 2024 the Princeton University Board of Trustees approved the appointment of Muhammad as Professor of African American studies and public affairs.
[12] Muhammad is the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, published by Harvard University Press.
[13] As an academic, Muhammad is at the forefront of scholarship on the enduring link between race and crime in the United States that has shaped and limited opportunities for African Americans.
His research interests include the racial politics of criminal law, policing, juvenile delinquency and punishment, as well as immigration and social reform.
[1] Muhammad is working on his second book, Disappearing Acts: The End of White Criminality in the Age of Jim Crow, which traces the historical roots of the changing demographics of crime and punishment so evident today.
[15] Muhammad has been an associate editor of The Journal of American History,[7] and was recently appointed to the editorial board of Transition Magazine, published by the W.E.B.