One of the nation’s top experts on the First Amendment and free speech in wartime; the author of the popular new book Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage; and an associate justice for the Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe Court of Appeals are part of the spring lineup for the School of Law’s eighth annual Public Interest Law Speakers Series.
Titled “Access to Justice: The Social Responsibility of Lawyers” the series brings to the University outstanding academics and practitioners in areas such as international human rights, the economics of poverty, civil liberties, racial justice, capital punishment, clinical legal education, and government and private public service.
The goals of the series are to highlight the professional responsibilities of law students and lawyers to provide access to justice; to provide a forum for the law school and the wider University community to engage in a discussion of the legal, social and ethical issues that bear upon access to justice; and to promote scholarship in this area.
The series kicked off Jan. 18 with a lecture by Sheryll Cashin titled “Shall We Overcome? Democracy, Race & Multiculturalism in the 21st Century.” Cashin, professor of law at Georgetown University and Washington University Distinguished University Scholar, was the Black Law Students Association Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Speaker.
The remaining presentations, listed below, will be held in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall (unless otherwise indicated) and are free and open to the public.
• 11 a.m. Jan. 25 — Geoffrey Stone, the Harry Kalven Jr. Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, will discuss “Civil Liberties in Wartime.” A former law clerk for Justice William J. Brennan Jr., Stone is the author of the recent book Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism. This lecture is co-sponsored by the George Warren Brown School of Social Work.
• 11 a.m. Feb. 1 in Graham Chapel — Stephanie Coontz, professor of history and family studies at The Evergreen State College, will present “Courting Disaster? The World Historical Transformation of Marriage.” Coontz, the director of research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, is the author of several books, including Marriage, a History.
Her lecture is co-sponsored by the Assembly Series, The Woman’s Club of Washington University, the American Civil Liberties Union Student Chapter and the Women’s Law Caucus.
• 11 a.m. Feb. 8 — Sarah Buel, clinical professor of law at the University of Texas and the founder and co-director of its Domestic Violence Clinic, will discuss “Accountability, Power and Politics: Navigating the Troubled Waters of Domestic Violence Legal Advocacy.”
Buel is the co-founder of the University of Texas Voices Against Violence program and the university’s Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. Her lecture is co-sponsored by Equal Justice Works and the National Lawyers Guild.
• 12 p.m. Feb. 16 — Randy Barnett, the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Law at Boston University, will speak about “The Presumption of Liberty and the Public Interest: Medical Marijuana and Fundamental Rights.”
Barnett is the author of Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty. He represented the Oakland Cannabis Cooperative pro bono in the U.S. Supreme Court case Raich v. Gonzalez, which involved the right to use marijuana for medical purposes. His lecture is co-sponsored by the Federalist Society.
• 11 a.m. Feb. 22 — Jennifer Gordon, associate professor of law at Fordham University, will discuss Lawyers and Labor: The Role of Law in Organizing Low-Wage Workers.
Gordon, the School of Law’s Webster Society Annual Speaker, is a MacArthur Fellow and author of the book Suburban Sweatshops: The Fight for Immigrant Rights. Gordon founded the Workplace Project in New York, a nationally recognized grass-roots workers’ center that organized low-wage Latino immigrants.
• 11 a.m. March 1 — Pamela Karlan, the Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law at Stanford University, will focus on “The Paradoxical Structure of Constitutional Litigation.”
A former law clerk for Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Karlan is a constitutional law scholar and author of numerous books and articles. One of the nation’s most respected U.S. Supreme Court advocates, she teaches the U.S. Supreme Court Clinic at Stanford Law School. Her lecture is co-sponsored by the America Constitution Society.
• 11 a.m. March 8 — Tom Beauchamp, professor of philosophy and a senior research scholar at the Georgetown University Kennedy Institute of Ethics, will present “Physician-Assisted Hastening of Death: Who Ought to Decide?”
Beauchamp is a prolific writer and one of the country’s leading experts on bioethics and issues relating to assisted suicide. He is author of several books, including The Ethics of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia and Human Use of Animals: Case Studies in Ethical Choice.
His lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy in Arts & Sciences and the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values.
• 11 a.m. March 8 — S. James Anaya, the James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy at the University of Arizona and a Washington University Distinguished Visiting Scholar, will discuss “Indian Givers: What Indigenous Peoples Have Contributed to International Human Rights Law.”
Anaya is an associate justice for the Court of Appeals for the Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe, former staff attorney for the Indian Law Resource Council and the National Indian Youth Council and author of Indigenous Peoples in International Law. His lecture is co-sponsored by the Native American Law Students Association.
• 9 a.m. March 31 — Gerald López, professor of clinical law and director of the Center for Community Problem Solving at New York University, will speak about A Rebellious Vision of Community Problem Solving. López, the annual Access to Equal Justice Conference keynote speaker, is the author of Rebellious Lawyering, one of the most influential books about progressive law practice and community problem-solving.
His lecture is co-sponsored by the School of Law’s Clinical Education Program, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and Journal of Law & Policy, and by the School of Social Work.
Coordinating the series are Karen L. Tokarz, J.D., professor of law and director of clinical education and alternative dispute resolution programs, and Peter J. Wiedenbeck, J.D., associate dean of faculty and the Joseph H. Zumbalen Professor of the Law of Property.
For more information, call 935-6419.