2009-2010 ACS Student Chapters of the Week
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for May 7: Howard University School of Law
The Howard University School of Law chapter of the ACS was recognized by the school's Student Bar Association as the "Student Organization of the Year" for its "relentless" pursuit of excellence in the programs the chapter presented in the 2009-10 academic year. Recently, the chapter hosted a discussion with George Washington Law Professor Paul Butler and Howard Law Dean Kurt Schmoke about "Whether Good People Should Be Prosecutors." The event received nationwide exposure through coverage by C-SPAN. Other events include: a screening of the criminal justice exposé "American Violet," following a discussion with ACLU Drug Policy Reform Project Director Graham Boyd; a National Popular Vote discussion with Maryland State Senator and AU Washington College of Law Professor Jamie Raskin; and several weekly brown bag lunch series. The chapter has a newly elected executive board and plans to focus heavily on increasing membership through innovative recruitment efforts, including membership drives and continued diverse and dynamic event programming for the 2010-2011 academic year. Upcoming events for next year include trips to the Supreme Court to hear oral argument, a progressive career panel, and a discussion with the progressive legal organization Alliance for Justice. Chapter members are looking forward to attending the upcoming ACS National Conference and Student Retreat.
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for April 16: University of Texas at Austin School of Law
The University of Texas School of Law chapter of the American Constitution Society put together an exciting year of events, anchored by its signature professor lunches and afternoon discussion panels. Lunch talks featured Profs. Sanford Levinson, Ariel Dulitzky,Philip Durst,and William Forbath, as well as Jim Harrington, Director of the Texas Civil Rights Project. In these intimate talks, students engaged the speakers in discussions of their scholarship and advocacy
in the areas of constitutional design an interpretation, domestic application of international law, and civil rights. The afternoon sessions included a lively discussion panel featuring UT professors previewing Supreme Court cases; a talk with Todd Kelly, plaintiff's counsel in the Jones v. Halliburton litigation opposing mandatory arbitration of a woman's claim resulting from a sexual assault in Iraq; and a panel response to issues raised in John Yoo's visit to UT Law. The UT Law Student Chapter regularly staffed a table in the law school's common area throughout the semester to promote membership, chapter events, and the ACS National Convention. Dues-paying members also received access to an outline bank featuring contributions from members of Chancellors, the UT honor society for students earning the16 highest GPAs after the first two years of law school.
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for April 9: University of Michigan Law School
The University of Michigan chapter of ACS this year was named the school's "Most Active"
student group (not to mention "Most Congenial"). After kicking off the year with a talk by Barb McQuade of the ACS lawyer chapter (since confirmed as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan), ACS Michigan has hosted events ranging from a faculty-led SCOTUS preview, to a discussion with Michigan's newly formed and recently successful non-DNA Innocence Clinic, to panels
organized with the Federalist Society and the ACLU. The chapter also has strengthened their ACS membership through a series of intimate lunches, in which a handful of members are able to get to know
one or two senior faculty members. To cap off this year of events, ACS will host an analysis by Richard Primus, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, on of the strengths and validity of the constitutional objections to the recent health care bill.
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for April 1: Suffolk University Law School
The Suffolk University Law School Chapter has hosted a variety of events throughout the year and membership continues to grow daily. After starting the year with an entirely new e-board, Suffolk's ACS chapter has become well known on campus and in the Boston legal circle. In this Academic year, Suffolk was honored to host Attorney Richard Shiffrin, Deputy General Counsel, Intelligence Department of Defense (1998-2003), who led a fascinating discussion on the use of the State Secrets Privilege. Last semester, Suffolk hosted Sanford Levinson, UT Austin Professor of Government, for Constitution Day. This month, the Suffolk Chapter sponsored a panel with attorneys who litigated the Guantanamo Bay detention cases. Speakers shared experiences from the book The Guantanamo Lawyers. This past weekend, the chapter became host to over 31 teams from over 17 schools at the Regional Competition of the Constance Baker Motley National Moot Court Competition in Constitutional Law. Countless local attorneys came out to judge the students' oral advocacy skills and network within the ACS community. Several other social and networking events were heldthroughout the year as well. The Chapter hopes to maintain their vitality in the coming year with more excellent events.
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for March 12 : Stanford Law School
The Stanford Chapter of the ACS is one of the largest and most active student organizations at Stanford Law School. With a strong and vocal membership, ACS has hosted an average of more
than one academic event each week in addition to a variety of social events such as a softball match against Stanford's chapter of the Federalist Society and a laser tag scrimmage with Santa Clara's ACS chapter. Stanford ACS has expanded its podcast program called "Summary Judgments" and launched it on its new website at http://acslaw.stanford.edu. Most recently, Stanford ACS members rallied during their reading week to host the Regional Competition for The Constance Baker Motley National Moot CourtCompetition.
This year, the Stanford Chapter has held events focusing on the Progressive Constitution; Cap and Trade; Law, War, and Robotics; the Stupak Amendment; the Healthy San Francisco Plan; COP15; Heller and the 2nd Amendment; Iqbal and Notice Pleading; the Shriver Report; and more.
This year, the Stanford Chapter has held events focusing on the Progressive Constitution; Cap and Trade; Law, War, and Robotics; the Stupak Amendment; the Healthy San Francisco Plan; COP15; Heller and the 2nd Amendment; Iqbal and Notice Pleading; the Shriver Report; and more.
The Stanford Chapter has hosted The Honorable Marsha Berzon, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, California; The Honorable Margaret McKeown, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Diego, California; The Honorable Shira Scheindlin, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York; The Honorable Guido Calabresi, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit based in New York; The Honorable Martha Daughtrey, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; and The Honorable Patrick Higginbotham, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit; Professor Jane Schacter, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Curriculum at Stanford Law School; Professor Tom Rowe, Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law (Emeritus) at Duke Law School; Professor Richard Marcus, Horace O. Coil ('57) Chair in Litigation at University of California-Hastings College of Law; Professor Kenneth Anderson, Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law; Professor Richard Thompson Ford, George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford Law School; Professor Meg Caldwell, Senior Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School; Professor Michael Wara, Assistant Professor of Law at Stanford Law School; Professor Jeffrey L. Fisher, Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School; Professor Michael McConnell,
Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law at Stanford Law School; and Professor Pamela Karlan, Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law and Co-Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School; and litigators Adam Wolf and Juila Mass of the ACLU; Jaimienne Studley of Public Advocates; Dennis Henigan of the Brady Center; and Robert Rubin of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights.
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for February 19 : New York Law School
ACS Student Chapter of the Week for December 4 : Harvard Law School
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
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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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