Alice Hearst holds a JD from the University of Washington and a PhD from Cornell University.  Her first research project looked at the emergence of a constitutional right to privacy in matters relating to family and intimate relations, covering a broad range of topics from the rights of unmarried parents to parental control over children's education to abortion to the rights of same-sex couples to recognition and protection. She is now reviving and expanding that project in light of the Supreme Court's recent decision overturning Roe v. Wade.   She is the author of Children and the Politics of Cultural Belonging from Cambridge University Press, which focused on the intersections of foster care/adoption and cultural identity.  Her recent work examines the global migration of norms about child welfare and she is currently inquiring into how the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affects the movement of children of indigenous communities in foster care and adoption at national levels.  

Selected Publications

Children and the Politics of Cultural Belonging (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Essays in the Law and Society Review and the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth.

“Children, International Human Rights, and the Politics of Belonging,” in What Is Right for Children?, Karen Worthington and Martha Fineman, eds. (Ashgate, 2009).