Destiny Peery

Destiny Peery is a social psychologist and legal scholar who specializes in the study of identity, bias and discrimination, diversity, equity and inclusion, including their intersections with the law and in spaces within the legal profession.

Destiny has taught at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and Duke University School of Law. As a professor, she has been recognized multiple times by her students for her service to the law school community and her teaching, including being awarded Northwestern Law’s top teaching honor in 2019. As a research scholar, she has 15+ years conducting experimental, survey, and other research on topics including social categorization and perception (i.e., how people see and categorize others) and stereotyping, bias and discrimination, including how people reconcile legal conceptions with evolving social conceptions of these concepts.

Destiny has extensive experience facilitating workshops on cognitive and implicit biases and diversity and inclusion-related topics across the legal profession and other professional communities, including human resources, higher education, the medical profession, and law enforcement. She has been recognized by workshop participants for her approachable, compassionate style that encourages engagement with often challenging topics. She works most often with lawyers, from law firms to government to public interest, and judges from state and federal courts.

As a research consultant, Destiny has served as a primary investigator for research on diversity in the legal profession for the American Bar Association (ABA) and the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL). In this role, she has led the design process for surveys and research studies, collected and analyzed data, and produced research reports on the findings for the organizations. She has also served as an expert in legal cases, producing reports and testimony aimed at introducing courts to the social science of bias and stereotyping and encouraging application of it in cases involving alleged discrimination.

Destiny holds a Ph.D. in social psychology and a J.D. from Northwestern University.

Research on the Legal Profession

• “Left Out and Left Behind: The Hurdles, Hassles, and Heartaches of Achieving Long-Term Legal Careers for Women of Color,” Destiny Peery, Paulette Brown, and Eileen Letts, American Bar Association, June 2020.
• “2019 NAWL Annual Survey on the Promotion and Retention of Women in Law Firms,” Destiny Peery, National Association of Women Lawyers, 2019.
• “2018 NAWL Annual Survey on the Promotion and Retention of Women in Law Firms,” Destiny Peery, National Association of Women Lawyers, 2018.
• “2017 NAWL Annual Survey on the Promotion and Retention of Women in Law Firms,” Destiny Peery, National Association of Women Lawyers, 2017.

Selected Academic Publications

• “Equal Protection and the Social Sciences Thirty Years after McCleskey v. Kemp,” Northwestern University Law Review (2018). Co-authored with Osagie Obasogie.
• “Redefining Race: Assessing the Consequences of the Law’s Failure to Define Race,” Cardozo Law Review (2017).
• “The Colorblind Ideal in a Race-Conscious Reality: The Case for a New Legal Ideal for Race Relations,” Northwestern University Journal of Law and Social Policy (2011).
• “Broadening Horizons: Considerations for Creating a More Complete Science of Diversity,” Psychological Inquiry (2010). Co-authored with Jennifer A. Richeson.
• Achieving Diversity on the Jury: Jury Size and the Peremptory Challenge. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (2009). Co-authored with Shari S. Diamond, Judge Francis Dolan, & Emily Dolan.
• “Ambiguity and Ambivalence in the Voting Booth and Beyond: A Social-Psychological Perspective on Racial Attitudes and Behavior in the Obama Era,” Du Bois Review (2009). Co-authored with Galen V. Bodenhausen.
• Black + White = Black: Hypodescent in Reflexive Categorization of Racially Ambiguous Faces. Psychological Science (2008). Co-authored with Galen V. Bodenhausen.