2009-2010 ACS Student Chapters of the Week
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for December 4 : Harvard Law School
The ACS Student Chapter at Harvard Law School (HLS) kicked off the school year with a weeklong series of events. These included: a look back at the financial crisis of 2008 with Ben Friedman from the Harvard Economics Department and Visiting Professor Geoffrey Miller; a look forward at the future of originalism with David Gans of the Constitutional Accountability Center and Professor Jamal Greene of Columbia Law School; and a debate cosponsored with the Federalist Society about racial profiling in law enforcement in the wake of Professor Louis Gates' arrest, featuring Harvard Professor Ron Sullivan and Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute. HLS's ACS chapter has demonstrated that it is one of the biggest draws on campus, pulling in 80-150 students at every substantive event.These have included a discussion on "The Constitution in 2020" with Professors Yochai Benkler, Frank Michelman, Mark Tushnet, and Noah Feldman, an evaluation of President Obama's judicial appointments with Professor David Fontana of GWU Law and Ciara Torres-Spelliscy of the Brennan Center, and a Supreme Court Term Review and analysis of the "Activism of the Roberts Court" with former New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse and Seth Waxman, former Solicitor General. This semester, the chapter started a spotlight series on the marriage equality debate, with a brown bag lunch with Visiting Professor Tobias Wolff, a dinner talk with David Boies on his efforts to overturn Proposition 8, and a lunchtime discussion with Maura Healey from the Massachusetts Attorney General's office on its challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act. Finally, ACS hosted a variety of brown bag luncheons with law school professors,including a talk with Professor Bill Stuntz on criminal justice reform, a topic that the chapter will take up next semester with its spotlight series.
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for November 20 : University of Pennsylvania Law School
The Penn Law ACS chapter has sought to increase its presence on campus by hosting a variety of thoughtful events, creating new incentives for students to join ACS, and developing strong coalitions with other student groups to highlight emerging issues in law and policy. By the end of first semester, Penn ACS will have hosted a total of 12 events,including a Supreme Court Review and Preview panel, a variety of events that examined the Obama administration's policies on fighting terrorism, protecting women's rights, enforcing civil rights, and LGBT policies - in addition to a "teach-in" that focused on the current efforts to reform healthcare. Featured speakers have included Debo Adegbile, Steve Shapiro, Tom Goldstein, Richard Shiffrin, Deborah Pearlstein, Julie Fernandes, Susan Frietsche, Barry Furrow, and Penn Law Professors Kermit Roosevelt, Jim Feldman, Stephanos Bibas,Claire Finklestein, Anita Allen, and Tobias Wolff.In all, 11 different Penn Law student groups-in addition to the Philadelphia Lawyers and Drexel University ACS chapters-have cosponsored events with Penn ACS. Moreover, Penn ACS will continue its recently-started "BYOB" dinner series with Penn Law professors, taking advantage of Philadelphia's BYOB restaurant culture and providing students with new opportunities to interact with their professors in a relaxed setting. This semester, Professors David Rudovsky and Matthew Adler have dined with students, and Professor Catherine Struve has already agreed to participate next semester. The chapter also recently hosted its bi-annual Quizzo (Pub Quiz) membership drive, providing a rousing evening of trivia, competition, and laughs to 12 teams while signing up new students to join the ranks of ACS.
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for November 13: Marquette University Law School
The ACS Student Chapter at Marquette University Law School kicked off the school year with a successful membership drive that tripled it total 2008-09 membership. This semester the chapter started monthly Young Lawyers' Happy Hours to help members network with local progressive attorneys. The chapter also began a Monthly Brown Bag Lunch series; topics have included "The Intersection of Law and Social Class,""If Feminism Were the Law," and "The Supreme Court Year in Review," which discussed the wide-ranging effects of Arizona v. Gant, Safford Unified School v. Redding, and Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County. Other events have included "Aspects of the Overlooked Constitution," with Professors Engel ("The Membership of Congress clause of Article 1"), Fallone ("The Republican Form of Government") and O'Callaghan ("The Forgotten Thirteenth Amendment") of Marquette University and Prof. Stephen Vladeck ("The Calling Forth clause of Article 1, Section 8") from American University. At "Standing Up For The Rule of Law" Charles Swift, one of Hamdan's military lawyers in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, passionately discussed his battle for recognizing rights of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The Executive Board continued to work closely with the Milwaukee Lawyers' Chapter to help put on other events such as "The Legal Status of U.S Restrictions on Travel to Cuba and Other Nations," "2009-10 Supreme Court Term Preview", and "President Obama and the Federal Judiciary: A View from Capitol Hill."
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for November 6: University of Denver Strum College of Law
The new leadership of ACS chapter at the University of Denver Sturm College Of Law
has breathed new life into the organization, and their campus as a whole. The chapter strengthened the College's progressive voice by hosting numerous panel presentations and debates. Among the many highlights: multiple panel presentations on "How to Keep Your Interest in Public Interest," featuring, among others, Lino Lipinsky (Chair of the Colorado Lawyer Chapter of the ACS), John Asher (Colorado Legal Services), and Craig Welling (Governor's Office of Legal Counsel); an alternative orientation for 1Ls, featuring a panel presentation on "Things to Do in Denver;" a Supreme Court Preview (co-sponsored by the Colorado Lawyer Chapter); and a standing-room only debate co-sponsored with the school's Federalist Society, which featured former Colorado Senator Ken Gordon presenting the progressive perspective. The DU chapter also partnered with student chapters of the National Lawyer's Guild, the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and the Public Interest Law Group to present new students with a unified introduction to the many progressive outlets available to them at the Sturm College of Law.
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for Oct 30: Northwestern University School of Law
The ACS Student Chapter at Northwestern University School of Law kicked off the school year with a full week of programming exploring rights and roles under the Constitution, and has kept the events coming. Over 100 people attended a panel moderated by Professor Len Rubinowitz on the state of prison overcrowding. This standing-room only event featured Tom Geraghty of the Bluhm Legal Clinic, Alan Mills of the Uptown People's Law Center, and Charles Fasano of the John Howard Association. Michael Bien, plaintiff's counsel in Coleman v.Schwarzenegger joined us from California via audio. Gita Gutierrez, a prominent habeas attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights and the first lawyer to visit detainees at Guantanamo Bay, shared her experiences as a progressive activist. The role and function of the judiciary was also a hot topic. Former Illinois Senator and Professor Dawn Clark Netsch joined Judge William Hibbler of the Northern District of Illinois and Illinois Appellate Judge Sharon Coleman to dicuss their opinions of judicial selection options in a panel moderated by Professor Lee Epstein. Professor Susan Bandes presented her view of empathy's place in judicial decisionmaking with such clarity that Professor Stephen Presser of the Federalist Society was hard-pressed to disagree. The chapter continues its tradition of holding roundtable discussions on emerging issues with members of the ACS Chicago Advisory Board and looks forward to a great year of programming on progressive interpretations of the Constitution. The chapters ranks have swollen to over 200 members through two membership events: a welcome meeting for new students and a "Progressives' Happy Hour."
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for Oct 23: Washington & Lee School of Law
The ACS Chapter at Washington and Lee kicked off the fall with its annual Supreme Court Preview. A third of the student body turned out to hear leading scholars from the faculty offer commentary on important cases presently before the Court. This week, ACS hosted a drug policy panel discussion on detoxification treatments and the legal issues surrounding drug use, and took over a local tavern and invited the student body in for a trivia night social. In coming weeks, this highly active chapter will host a series of programs on ethnicconflict in the Middle East. Criminal justice reform and equal rights issues are on the docket for the spring semester, and the chapter continues its strong tradition of brown bag issue discussions organized and led by students. The Yale conference on the Constitution in 2020 was a great networking opportunity for the chapter's strong delegation of executive leaders, who are also tremendously excited about the incoming 1L class at Washington and Lee. This class is already proving to be one of the most active incoming groups in years, and is helping to grow the chapter beyond what could have been imagined only a few years ago.
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for Oct 16: University of Missouri School of Law
The ACS Chapter of Missouri began its season of programming co-hosting a forum with the Federalist Society focused on national health care reform which featured Professor Tim Greany of St. Louis University School of Law, Dr. Susan Hinck, a Robert Wood Johnson Fellow and former advisor of Senators Max Baucus and Hillary Clinton on health care issues, and William A. Niskanen,chairman emeritus and distinguished senior economist of the CATO Institute. Currently, Missouri is in the midst of presenting its annual Supreme Court Series, which features talks given on cases of note in the current term. This year the series has grown to seven events covering awide array of substantive law subjects. Later in October, the chapter will be co-hosting an event with the Hispanic Law Student Association to discuss Justice Sotomayor's nomination and confirmation to the Supreme Court along with analysis and predictions based on the oral arguments heard so farthis term. Missouri will also be co-hosting an event with the law school featuring William Black, associate professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and featured in Michael Moore's recentlyreleased film "Capitalism: A Love Story." It is also worth noting that the chapter took on the Federalist Society counterparts in a friendly kickball match and dominated to the point where questions were raised as to what score invoked the mercy rule. Without an answer at the time,play continued until the Federalists gave up, took their ball, and went home.
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for Oct 8: Yale Law School
The ACS chapter at Yale Law School has had a busy first month of school. The Chapter has organized a reading group that meets every week, bringing in progressive professors to discuss their recent scholarship. The group has been very popular, especially among 1Ls. In addition, the Chapter hosted New Haven Mayor John DeStefano to discuss local poverty initiatives and held an event with judges and justices from Israel, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany to discuss the effect of the economic crash on the relationship between judges and administrative agencies.
This past weekend, the Yale Law School Chapter held a major conference on the Constitution in 2020. The conference brought together academics,policymakers, litigators and ACS members from across the country to discuss issues ranging from constitutional theory to movement mobilization. Participants included Prof. Pam Karlan, Stanford Law School, Prof. MarshallGanz, Kennedy School of Government, Addisu Demissie, Political Director of Organizing for America, Prof. Jamal Greene, Columbia Law School, Tom Saenz, President of MALDEF, and many more.Upcoming events include a discussion with Stephen Abraham, the liaison between the Bush Administration's CSRT tribunals at Guantanamo and intelligence agencies whose declaration to the Supreme Court caused it to hear Boumediene,and noted immigration attorney Ira Kurzban, who will talk about the effect of impact litigation on immigrants' rights.
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for Oct 1: UCLA School of Law
The ACS Chapter at UCLA Law School has gotten off to a great start this fall with both networking and substantive programming. The Chapter began the year with a board retreat potluck to plan programming, brainstorm new ideas, and strengthen relationships. After holding an introductory meeting for new students, the chapter organized a well attended happy hour to encourage students to sign up for ACS National membership. In additionto networking, ACS at UCLA has also been active in planning substantive events.The UCLA ACS chapter organized a study skills workshop for first year students and co-sponsored an event with the Critical Race Studies Program on post-racialism, which included Antonia Hernandez, ACS Board of Directors Member,and Professors Adam Winkler and Kimberlé Crenshaw as panelists. ACS at UCLA also organized its Annual Supreme Court Moot. This year the ACS chapter organized a moot for the petitioner in Padilla v.Kentucky, a case about a noncitizen defendant's constitutional right to attorney advice on the immigration consequences of pleading guilty. Well-known advocates such as Cecillia Wang of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project joined the Honorable Alex Kozinksi, Chief Judge for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, as justices for the moot. Over100 students attended the event. In October, the UCLA chapter will hold a debate with the Federalist Society on Health Care Reform, and a joint event with the Black Law Students Association and the Critical Race Studies Program on cases implicating race in the upcoming Supreme Court term.
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for Sept 25: WVU College of Law
The ACS Chapter of WVU College of Law Chapter is fostering discussion in Morgantown and throughout West Virginia. Last January, WVU ACS hosted Richard Feldmanto discuss the politics of gun control and how framing the issue determines how firearms are regulated. In February, the chapter hosted "The Evolution of Street Knowledge: Hip Hop's Influence on Law and culture. This groundbreaking symposium examined the intersection of law and hip hop culture and included keynote speakers Talib Kweli and Dr. Cornel West. WVU ACS Chapter Advisor Prof. Andre Cummings was the driving force behind the symposium. In April, Chapter Advisor Prof. Anne Lofaso discussed her ACS Issue Brief entitled "September Massacre: The LatestBattle in the War on Workers' Rights Under the National Labor Relations Act," which was followed by a screening of the movie Matewan.This fall, the chapter sparked discussion with the ACS national webcast"Keeping Faith and Looking Forward" and by hosting a Constitution Day Panel consisting of four WVU College of Law professors discussing opinions from the most recent Supreme Court Term. In addition, the chapter has generated awareness by participating in a student organization fair and hosting an informational social.
FOR INFORMATION ON LAST YEAR'S STUDENT CHAPTERS OF THE WEEK, PLEASE CLICK HERE.
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