Rosalind Rosenberg

As of 2018, she is Professor Emerita of History at Barnard College.

In 1985, Rosenberg testified as an expert witness in a highly-publicized case in which the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) had charged Sears Roebuck and Company with discrimination against their women employees. Rosenberg testified that the underrepresentation of women in Sears' sales force was "consistent with an absence of discrimination", due to differences in the career aspirations of men and women and other factors not attributable solely to Sears' business practices. In deciding the case in Sears' favor, Judge John A. Nordberg noted that Rosenberg's testimony helped him determine his verdict. This touched off a lengthy public debate that virtually isolated Professor Rosenberg from fellow feminists and historians, who accused her of turning her scholarship against the women's movement, with College of Staten Island professor Sandi Cooper terming Rosenberg's testimony an "immoral act" and fellow witness. Hofstra University professor Alice Kessler-Harris stating that: "You would not lie in your testimony, but you also would not say or write something as a historian solely to hurt a group of people. And the consequences of Rosalind's testimony can be interpreted that way." Within short order, numerous publications such as Radical History Review, New Directions for Women, The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Nation analyzed the case, and most were critical of Rosenberg's participation.

She graduated from Stanford University, with a BA and Ph.D., in 1974. She began her teaching career at Columbia University in 1974 and taught at Wesleyan University in Connecticut from 1982 to 1984 before joining the faculty at Barnard College, where she became the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History. At Barnard she has served as Chair of the Women’s Studies Department, the American Studies Program, and the History Department, while contributing to the graduate program at Columbia University. She has been a member of the executive committee of the Society of American Historians.

Rosalind Rosenberg (born 1946) is an American historian.