Regina L. Hillman

Assistant Professor of Law

Phone 901-678-3481 (office); 865-679-3483 (cell-preferred) Email Regina.L.Hillman@memphis.edu Fax Office Office 367

• CV
• SSRN

About Professor Hillman

Professor Regina Hillman joined the faculty at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law in 2017.  Her classes include Legal Methods I & II, Professional Responsibility, Advanced Legal Writing, Gender & the Law/LGBTQ+ Law, and Advanced Constitutional Law – Individual Rights. Professor Hillman serves as the Faculty Advisor to the Memphis Law Review and the LGBTQ+ student organization, OUTLaw. 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, as well as 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, including; the expansion of federal nondiscrimination protections to LGBTQ+ American workers; competing presidential executive orders impacting the LGBTQ+ community; the ongoing battle for Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students; the reach of Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia’s Title VII’s workplace protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity; 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, gender-affirming care for trans youth despite the unanimous support of every American major medical organization that identifies gender-affirming care as a medically-necessary standard of medical care.

Professor Hillman regularly presents at conferences, symposia, and continuing legal education seminars on LGBTQ+-related issues.  Recent engagements include speaking on a symposium panel addressing the tenth anniversary of Obergeell v. Hodges, presenting a work-in-progress to the AALS SOGI Section; 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; presenting at the annual meeting of the PPE Society about the Court’s 303 Creative LLD v. Elenis decision; and multiple presentations at the national, state, and local level addressing the current state of LGBTQ+ litigation, ongoing challenges to the LGBTQ+ community, and LGBTQ+ protections in employment, education, healthcare, and beyond following the Supreme Court’s 2020 Title VII decision in Bostock v. Clayton Co., Georgia.

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. While in 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 to Dean Richard Wirtz.  Following law school, Professor Hillman practiced at Bass, Berry & Sims and Hunton & Williams, focusing on complex 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 amendment and statutory law banning 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, as well as state bans refusing to recognize valid out-of-state same-sex marriages.  On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court held that both bans were unconstitutional, resulting in nationwide marriage equality. 

Professional Admissions

• Tennessee
• S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee
• S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee
• S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• United States Supreme Court

Publications

303 Creative & the Supreme Court’s “Expressive Free Speech” License to Discriminate - (research stage). 

The Bans Played On: United States v. Skrmetti (in progress). 

Challenging Obergefell – (in progress; solicited by Memphis Law Review for submission in Spring 2026 symposium issue). 

Collective Queer Resistance (in progress; solicited by Southwestern Law Review for publication in its Spring 2026 symposium volume). 

Legislating Fear (final edit) This article compares the current fear-based disinformation and anti-LGBTQ+ political campaign against transgender Americans with the fear-based disinformation and anti-gay and lesbian legislative actions taken during the mid-twentieth century’s Lavender Scare. 

TENNESSEE’S CONSTITUTION: The “Least Imperfect & Most Republican of the State Constitutions,” (final edit) State Court Report’s 50-Essay Project, NYU, Brennan Center (2025).

Lavender Scare to Lawfully Married: From Deviant to Dignified, 52:1 N. Ky. L. Rev. 3 (2025).

Experiencing Obergefell:  Memories of My Experience as a Lawyer on the Tennessee Tanco v. Haslam/Obergefell v. Hodges Legal Team – National Center for LGBT Rights, A Decade of Marriage (June 26, 2025).

Boosted by Bostock:  LGBTQ Title IX Protections, 58 Ind. L. Rev. 503 (2025).

Educating for Equality:  A Symposium on Combating Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation: A Roundtable Discussion, 13:2 Tenn. J. Race, Gender & Soc. Just. 66-70 (2024).

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).

Areas of Interest

Introductory & Advanced Legal Writing, Legal Research & Analysis, Legal Research & Analysis, Legal Methods I & II, Professional Responsibility & Legal Ethics; Gender & the Law, /LGBTQ+ Rights; Civil Rights, Administrative Law issues, and Constitutional issues.