Law speaker series features public interest law, policy advocates

The School of Law’s 22nd annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series fall lineup features leading lawyers, judges, academics and authors addressing several high-profile issues, including free speech, voting rights, racial justice and government service. 

The law school’s interdisciplinary approach to current legal and policy issues can be seen through the collaboration with sponsors across campus, including: the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement; the Assembly Series; the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy; the American Constitution Society; the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement and Institutional Diversity; the Prison Education Program; the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in Arts & Sciences; the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics;  and the School of Law’s Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. 

All lectures are free and open to the public. 

For more information, visit the law website.

Upcoming lectures 

Noon Sept. 16, Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom

Dan Tokaji, associate dean and the Charles W. Ebersold and Florence Whitcomb Ebersold Professor of Constitutional Law at Ohio State University, will discuss “Voting Rights, Gerrymandering, and the Uncertain Future of Democracy.”

3 p.m. Sept.  27, Hillman Hall, Clark-Fox Forum

George Sanchez, professor of American studies and ethnicity and of history at University of Southern California, will discuss “Bridging the Divided City: Preparing Students for a New Los Angeles.” The event is also the James E. McLeod Memorial Lecture on Higher Education. 

9 a.m. Oct. 4, Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom

Diane Orentlicher, former deputy for war crimes at the U.S. State Department, professor of international law at American University, will discuss “The Role of the ICTY in Understanding War and Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

Noon Oct. 7, Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom

Lara Bazelon, associate professor of law and director of the Criminal Juvenile Justice & Racial Justice Clinical Programs at University of San Francisco, will give a talk titled “Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction.”

4 p.m. Oct. 16, Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom

Melissa Murray, professor of law and co-faculty director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Network at New York University, will discuss “Sex and the Supreme Court.”

7 p.m. Oct. 28, Bauer Hall, Emerson Auditorium

Asma T. Uddin, senior scholar in the Religious Freedom Center at the Freedom Forum Institute in  Washington, will give the lecture “When Islam Is Not a Religion: Inside America’s Fight for Religious Freedom.”

9 a.m. Nov. 9, Hillman Hall, Clark-Fox Forum

Pidgeon Pagonis, intersex activist and filmmaker, will discuss “Increasing Intersex and Non-Binary Awareness.”

Noon Nov. 18, Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom

Michelle Oberman, the Katherine and George Alexander Professor of Law at Santa Clara University, will give a talk titled “Her Body, Our Laws: On the Frontlines of the Abortion War from El Salvador to Oklahoma.”

Earlier this fall, American civil liberties activist Nadine Strossen talked about her book, “Hate”; Nicole Garnett, of the University of Notre Dame, discussed “educational pluralism”; and Washington University constitutional law experts Lee Epstein and Greg Magarian reviewed the 2018-19 Supreme Court term with New York Times journalist Adam Liptak.

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