About Professor Hillman
Professor Regina Hillman joined the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law faculty in 2017. She teaches Legal Methods I & II, Professional Responsibility, Advanced Legal Writing, Gender & the Law/LGBTQ+ Law, and Advanced Constitutional Law – Individual Rights. Before joining the Memphis Law faculty, Professor Hillman taught Legal Process I & II as an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law and undergraduate and graduate level classes on Business Law & Ethics and Employment/Labor Law at Tusculum University.
Professor Hillman’s scholarship focuses on the progression of and challenges to LGBTQ+ rights; the expansion of federal nondiscrimination protections to LGBTQ+ American workers; the ongoing battle for Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students; the reach of Title VII’s workplace protections and Bostock’s impact on other federal nondiscrimination statutes; the need for permanent, consistent, and reliable LGBTQ+ protections; and the recent dangerous trend of state legislatures banning potentially life-saving, medically-necessary, gender-affirming care for trans youth despite the unanimous support from all major medical organizations that identify gender-affirming care as a potentially life-saving standard of medical care.
Professor Hillman regularly presents at conferences and continuing legal education seminars on LGBTQ+-related issues. Recent engagements include speaking as the Stonewall Lecturer at Roger Williams University School of Law; serving as a panelist at the American Bar Association’s Annual Criminal Justice Section meeting addressing state bans and criminalization of life-saving, gender-affirming care for trans youth; and CLE presentations at the state and local level addressing LGBTQ+ protections in employment, education, healthcare, and beyond following the Supreme Court’s 2020 Title VII decision in Bostock v. Clayton Co., Ga.
Education & Experience
Professor Hillman received her J.D. summa cum laude from The University of Tennessee College of Law and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. During law school, she was the Editor-in-Chief of the Tennessee Law Review and was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi. She received her B.A. summa cum laude from The University of Memphis. During law school, Professor Hillman externed for the Honorable James H. Jarvis II in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee and served as a Research Assistant for Dean Richard Wirtz. Following law school, Professor Hillman worked as a litigator at Bass, Berry & Sims, and Hunton & Williams, focusing on commercial business and healthcare litigation, commercial contract disputes, environmental claims, and labor/employment issues.
In 2013, Professor Hillman was an organizing member of the Tennessee Marriage Equality Legal Team that challenged Tennessee’s constitutional and statutory bans preventing the recognition of valid out-of-state same-sex marriages. The Tennessee case, Tanco v. Haslam, was consolidated with Sixth Circuit cases from Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky when the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, becoming Obergefell v. Hodges. The Obergefell case challenged state bans on same-sex marriage along with state recognition bans. On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court held that both bans were unconstitutional, resulting in nationwide marriage equality.
Professional Admissions
Tennessee; U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee; U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee; U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; United States Supreme Court
Publications
Legislating Fear: Banning Trans Youth Gender-Affirming Medical Care, (in progress) (compares the current fear-based anti-LGBTQ+ political campaign against transgender Americans with the fear-based misinformation and anti-gay and lesbian legislative actions taken in the mid-twentieth century’s Lavender Scare, including an analysis of the current wave of state laws banning and/or criminalizing parents and physicians from assisting trans youth in need of medically necessary gender-affirming care. Finally, the article analyzes the impact on trans minors, their families, and healthcare professionals when state legislators usurp parental control and disregard medical best practices and recommends avenues to combat care denial and the dissemination of disinformation and misinformation.)
Boosted by Bostock: LGBTQ Title IX Protections (publication forthcoming, Indiana Law Review, Spring 2025).
The Battle Over Bostock: Dueling Presidential Administrations & The Need for Consistent and Reliable LGBT Rights, 32 Am. U.J. Gender Soc. Pol’y & L. 1 (2023).
Title VII Discrimination Protections & LGBT Employees: The Need for Consistency, Certainty & Equality Post-Obergefell, 6:2 Belm. L. Rev. 1 (2019).
Deviant to Dignified: From Campbell v. Sundquist to Tanco v. Haslam: The History & Progression of LGBT Rights & Marital Equality in Tennessee, 83:2 Tenn. L. Rev. 371 (2016) (with Abby Rubenfeld).
Modern Legal History 2015: The Road to Obergefell, 3 Belm. Law Rev. 165 (2016).
Teaching Interest
Legal Writing, Research & Analysis, Legal Methods I & II; Professional Responsibility & Legal Ethics; Gender & the Law/LGBTQ+ Rights; Advanced Legal Writing; Civil Rights, and Constitutional issues.