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Professor María Pabón López, along with her husband, Professor Gerardo R. López, Associate Professor of Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Indiana University, has co-authored a new book that examines how the children of undocumented migrants in the U.S. are trapped at the intersection of two systems in crisis: the public education system and the immigration law system. Their book, Persistent Inequality: Contemporary Realities in the Education of Undocumented Latina/o Students is based on a long tradition of scholarship in Latino education and on newer critical race theory ideas. The book provides a critical analysis of the various legal and policy aspects of the U.S. educational and immigration law systems, asserting that both these systems need to address the living and working conditions of undocumented Latino students and remove the obstacles to educational achievement which these students struggle with daily. "This book is a response to questions that students have asked me in class and that I had begun exploring in my previous research," Professor María Pabón López says, adding that the book answers such questions as " What is the DREAM Act and how would this proposed federal law affect the lives of undocumented students? and How have immigration raids affected public school children and school administrators?"

Persistent Inequality is part of the Taylor & Francis/Routledge The Critical Educator series, co-edited by Professors Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. Mary Romero, Professor of Justice Studies and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University, says, "Cutting through the inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric, Persistent Inequality explains the origins and consequences of excluding undocumented students from educational opportunities. This book is essential reading not only for those invested in racial justice but also for those attempting to understand the contemporary immigration issues.”

Professor María Pabón López joined the faculty at Indiana University School of Law –
Indianapolis in the fall of 2002. She teaches immigration law, family law, professional responsibility, a seminar on the rights of non-citizens/aliens and trusts and estates, race and the law, criminal law, and women and the law. A recipient of numerous awards for her scholarship, teaching and efforts to further diversity at the university and in the community, Professor López is the only academic to be appointed to serve on Indiana’s 10 member Board of Law Examiners.