[3] After she became involved in protests against the Archdiocese of Detroit's attempts to close Black Catholic schools, she felt pressure from within her order and transferred to the Adrian Dominican Sisters in 1971.

[3] After working for the National Black Sisters' Conference and then Theology in the Americas, she began a doctoral program at Boston College to study with Jesuit theologian Bernard Lonergan.

She completed her PhD in systematic theology in 1991, with a dissertation titled "A Genetic Study of the Idea of the Human Good in the Thought of Bernard Lonergan," and she left religious life in 1994.

[7] In October of that same year, she delivered the Cunningham Lectures in New College, University of Edinburgh, on the topic "Theology as Political: The Weight, the Yearning, the Urgency of Life."

In 2020, she began a one-year term as the Alonzo L. McDonald Family Chair on the Life and Teachings of Jesus and Their Impact on Culture at Emory University.

[14] In her book Enfleshing Freedom, Copeland wrote: "On Easter, God made Jesus queer in His solidarity with us.