Barbara A. McGraw is Professor, Social Ethics, Law and Public Life and Director of the Center for Engaged Religious Pluralism at Saint Mary's College of California.  She is an author and speaker on the role of religion in public life, the moral foundations of the American political system, and religious pluralism and public policy.  She holds a Ph.D. in Religion and Social Ethics and a Juris Doctor Degree, both from the University of Southern California, is a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, and is a Project Affiliate of The Pluralism Project at Harvard University.  Earlier in her career, she practiced law with the international law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom. Currently, her work is focused on religious pluralism and prisons, through which she is pursuing equitable religious accommodation practices and policies for inmates in state prisons through scholarship and activism.

Professor McGraw's co-edited work Taking Religious Pluralism Seriously: Spiritual Politics on America's Sacred Ground (Baylor University Press, 2005), which welcomes many voices of America's religiously pluralistic society into public conversation, was reviewed by Jon Meacham in the cover article of the December 25, 2005 "New York Times Book Review" as an "important new book."  In that review, Mr. Meacham credited Professor McGraw with "coining the term 'America's Sacred Ground.'"  In addition to serving as co-editor (with Jo Renee Formicola), Professor McGraw is a contributing author.

In her book entitled Rediscovering America’s Sacred Ground: Public Religion and Pursuit of the Good in a Pluralistic America (State University of New York Press, 2003), which has received excellent reviews, Professor McGraw argues that a fundamental moral framework underlies the American political system––a framework she calls "America's Sacred Ground."  This is a framework for public discourse and law that moves the debate about the role of religion in public life beyond the false religious right/secular left dichotomy that currently prevails, shows that the American founders' seemingly conflicting positive and negative references to religion actually are not contradictory, and shows how America's many pluralistic religious voices can contribute to public discourse without undermining the "ground" of the American political/legal system.

In her capacity as member of the Bar of the US Supreme Court, Professor McGraw filed an amicus curiae brief in the Pledge of Allegiance case (Elk Grove Unified School District, et al. v. Newdow), in which she made the argument that the nation's shared value and unifying principle is pluralism.

Professor McGraw also is co-author (with Robert S. Ellwood, Professor Emeritus University of Southern California) of the highly regarded and widely used world religions text Many Peoples, Many Faiths: Women and Men in the World Religions (Prentice-Hall 1999- , several editions).  The ninth edition was published fall 2008.

Dr. McGraw is a frequent speaker and has addressed, among many other organizations, the Commonwealth Club of California (San Francisco and San Jose), the American Academy of Religion, Americans United for Separation of Church and State (several chapters), the Association of California Chaplains in State Service, the National Correctional Chaplaincy Associations (northeast and southeast), and the National Correctional Chaplaincy Directors Association.

Professor McGraw has served as Co-Chair of the Religion and Politics Section of the of the American Academy of Religion and has served as Executive Council Member of the Religion and Politics Division of the American Political Science Association.  From 1996-2003, she was active in leadership roles in the American Academy of Religion/Western Region, including serving as President; Vice-President/Program Chair; and member of the board of directors for many years.