Professor Yildirim joined the Whittier Law School faculty in 2005, following a year as Visiting Scholar at New York University’s Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies. She served as the Director of Whittier’s Center for International and Comparative Law during the 2007-08 academic year.

Professor Yildirim’s research focuses on secularism in comparative contexts, and issues of human dignity, specifically regarding minority religious and sexual identities. She was pro bono counsel to Kimberlie Webb in Webb v. City of Philadelphia, 562 F.3d 256 (3rd Cir. 2009), seeking recognition of Webb’s free exercise right to wear a religious headcovering under her police uniform hat. An account of Professor Yildirim’s experience litigating the appeal can be found in the forthcoming Law and Religion volume of Cases in Context series by Aspen Publishers. Her current research is centered on a critique of the ongoing legal and political changes in the post-9/11 world.

Professor Yildirim recently chaired the Islamic Law Committee of the American Branch of the International Law Association, and currently serves on the Executive Board of the Islamic Law Committee of the Association of American Law Schools. She is an active participant in a number of other academic and legal organizations. She enjoys spending time with her students outside the classroom as the faculty advisor to Whittier Law Review and numerous other student organizations, and as the faculty coach to the Whittier’s Jessup International Moot Court team.

Books and Book Chapters

• Chapter IV: Accommodation and Tolerance. Law and Religion: Cases in Context. Leslie C. Griffin, ed. Aspen: 2010.
• Islamic Law. Encyclopedia of Muslim World. Brown Reference Group: 2010.
• The Search for Shared Idioms: Contesting Views of Laiklik Before the Turkish Constitutional Court. Muslim Communities and the Crisis of Secularism. Gabriele Marranci, ed. Springer: 2010.

Articles

• Discussing Islam in the Post-9/11 Epistemological Terrain, 19 Pace Int’l L. Rev. 223 (2007).
• Empowering the Human in Human Rights Discourse, 100 Am. Soc’y Int’l L. 409 (2006).
• Aftermath of a Revolution: A Case Study of Turkish Family Law, 17 Pace Int’l L. Rev. 347 (2005).
• Expanding Secularism’s Scope: An Indian Case Study, 52 Am. J. Comp. L. 901 (2004).

Works in Progress

• Talking Islam in the Post-9/11 Epistemological Terrain: Politics and Laws of Terror and Apology
• Straightening the Prism of Sexual Identity Rainbow: A Critique of the Same-Sex Marriage Debates
• Tangled Tales: Hair, Headscarves and the Law in Comparative Contexts

• Muslim Countries or Islamic States: A Panel Debate on the Relationship of Secularism and Islamic Law. Invited Participant. AALS 2009 Annual Meeting. Section on Islamic Law.
• Law and Religion in Turkey. Presentation to the Orange County Bar Association, International Law Section Meeting. January 22, 2008.
• Discussing Islam in the Post-9/11 Epistemological Terrain. International Law Symposium: Interpreting Islamic Law for the Western World. Invited
  Speaker. Pace University School of Law. January 26, 2007.
• Panel: Fundamentalisms and Human Rights. Invited Speaker. Centennial Meeting of the American Society of International Law. March 29-April1, 2006.
• Tangled Tales: Prohibition on Headcoverings in Turkish Public Space. Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities 2006 Conference.
• Syracuse University School of Law. March 17, 2006.
• Evolution of Turkish Family Law. AALS 2006 Annual Meeting, Section on Legal History: Recent Developments in Comparative Legal History. January 5, 2006.
• Law, Religion and Gender in Turkey. Cornell L.L.M. Conference, Cornell School of Law. April 3, 2004.

Pro Bono Activities

• Webb v. City of Philadelphia. 562 F.3d 256. 3d Cir. (Pa.), Apr. 7, 2009. Pro-bono co-counsel with Jeffrey M. Pollock, Fox Rothschild L.L.P.

• Association of American Law Schools, Islamic Law Committee, Executive Board Member, 2009-Present.
• International Law Association, American Branch Islamic Law Committee, Chair, 2007-2009.
• Society of American Law Teachers, Member.
• American Society of International Law, Member.
• National Association of Muslim Lawyers, Member.
• New Jersey Muslim Attorneys, Member.
• American Academy of Religion, Member.