Shafiqa Ahmadi, JD, is an associate professor of clinical education at the Rossier School of Education and the co-director for the Center for Education, Identity, and Social Justice at the University of Southern California. She is an expert on diversity and legal protection of underrepresented students, including Muslims, bias and hate crimes, and sexual assault survivors. Prior to joining the Rossier faculty, she taught at the Gould School of Law and was a visiting researcher at the Center for Urban Education at Rossier. She has also served as a research associate at the Research Institute at Rossier, where she assisted with grant proposals and worked on a grant awarded by the Department of Education (DOE) designed to prevent and reduce on-campus sexual assault. Prior to joining USC Rossier, she worked for the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission, where she investigated alleged violations of civil rights and discrimination in areas such as employment, housing, and access to state and state-funded services.

Ahmadi received her Doctor of Jurisprudence from Indiana University Maurer School of Law at Bloomington, Indiana. While in law school and graduate school, she focused on employment law, corporate international law, Middle Eastern languages and cultures, and Islamic law (Shari‘a). She is fluent in five languages. She is a native speaker of Persian (Dari & Farsi) and her second language is English. She also speaks Hindi and Urdu.

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The National Center for Institutional Diversity Research and Scholarship Seminar Series features scholars who have furthered our understanding of historical and contemporary social issues related to identity, difference, culture, representation, power, oppression, and inequality — as they occur and affect individuals, groups, communities, and institutions. The series also highlights how research and scholarship can be applied to address current and contemporary diversity, equity, and inclusion issues in higher education and society.