She served as coauthor of the report that “detail[ed] the University’s direct, financial, and intellectual ties to slavery”.
The publication of the report attracted media attention, including in the New York Review of Books and in the Washington Post.
[7] Brown-Nagin has written and publicly spoken about constitutional law, legal history and the American civil rights movement, publishing books and articles for scholarly and popular audiences.
[10][11][12] In 2022, Brown-Nagin published Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality (Pantheon Press, 2022), which won the 2023 Order of the Coif Book Award (American Association of Law Schools), bestowed upon “authors of outstanding publications that evidence creative talent of the highest order.”[13][14] Civil Rights Queen also won the 2023 Darlene Clark Hine Award (Organization of American History), 2023 Lillian Smith Book Award (Southern Regional Council/UGA), and has been featured in NPR, PBS, Harvard Magazine, and other publications.
[15][16] In 2020, Brown-Nagin testified before the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties that held a briefing “on how the violent treatment of protestors and journalists across the country by federal and local law enforcement have violated the First Amendment.”[17] Brown-Nagin was selected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.