Rate My Professor Marisa Cianciarulo

Marisa S. Cianciarulo is the Dean and Professor of Law at Western State University College of Law, leading one of Orange County's longstanding institutions. Renowned as an expert in immigration and refugee law, she practiced immigration law for fifteen years from 1997 to 2012 in the Washington, D.C. area, representing individuals from Central and South America, Afghanistan, Africa, Asia, Pakistan, and Eastern Europe in political asylum and other immigration proceedings. Prior to academia, she worked as a Staff Attorney for the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration and taught in the Villanova Law School Clinic for Asylum, Refugee and Emigrant Services. Cianciarulo earned her B.A. from The Catholic University of America, M.A. from American University, and J.D. from American University Washington College of Law.

In 2006, she joined Chapman University Fowler School of Law as Professor of Law, where she founded and directed the Bette and Wylie Aitken Family Protection Clinic from 2006 to 2017, served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and held the position of Interim Dean. Appointed Dean of Western State University College of Law in 2023, she brings extensive leadership experience to her role. Her academic interests focus on vulnerable immigrant populations, the intersection of gender and immigration, human trafficking, post-9/11 treatment of refugees, and asylum claims based on intimate partner violence. Selected publications include “Batterers as Agents of the State: Challenging the Public/Private Distinction in Intimate Partner Violence-Based Asylum Claims,” 35 Harvard Journal of Law & Gender 117 (2012); “Pulling the Trigger: Separation Violence as a Basis for Refugee Protection for Battered Women” (co-authored with Claudia David), 59 American University Law Review 337 (2009); “Terrorism and Asylum Seekers: Why the Real ID Act is a False Promise,” 43 Harvard Journal on Legislation 101 (2006); “Refugees in Our Midst: Applying International Human Rights Law to the Bullying of LGBTQ Youth in the United States,” 47 Columbia Human Rights Law Review 55 (2016); and “For the Greater Good: The Subordination of Reproductive Freedom to State Interests in the United States and China,” 51 Akron Law Review 99 (2017). She has taught courses including Civil Procedure, Refugee Law and Remedies, Immigration and Refugee Law and Policy, Gender and Sexual Orientation and the Law, and Family Protection Clinic. Honors include Chapman’s student-voted Professor of the Year in 2010 and the Valerie Scudder Award for outstanding achievement in teaching, scholarship, and service in 2017.