In recent weeks, the Trump Administration has escalated intimidation efforts against Harvard University and other private colleges, by cancelling billions in federal funding, and threatening to revoke tax-exempt status unless the schools make major changes to their hiring and teaching practices. In this event, ACS will host Harvard Law Professor Andrew Manuel Crespo to make sense of the legal strategies behind the administration's attacks on higher education, and how the academy can defend its independence.
Featuring:
Andrew Manuel Crespo, Morris Wasserstein Professor of Law at Harvard University, General Counsel, AAUP-Harvard Faculty Chapter
Taonga Leslie, Director of Policy and Program for Racial Justice, American Constitution Society
From radical attempts to end birthright citizenship to mass detentions at Guantanamo, President Trump has made persecuting immigrants a cornerstone of his first weeks in office. In this event, Professors Ana Raquel Minian and Amanda Frost will examine the long history of attacks on immigrants and how they weaken rights and protections for us all.
This event was a nonpartisan, free town hall program about the threat of an imminent call by the states for a new Constitutional Convention under Article V and its potential dramatic impact on personal and civil rights, business, state and local government, agriculture, education, healthcare, manufacturing, national security, and more.
Outgoing ACS President Russ Feingold discussed his co-authored book on the subject, The Constitution in Jeopardy: An Unprecedented Effort to Rewrite Our Fundamental Law and What We Can Do About It. A panel discussion followed, featuring Prof. Ron Lee, Ph.D. (Rockford University), Prof. Evan Bernick (Northern Illinois University College of Law), Dean Joseph D. Kearney (Marquette Law School), and Prof. Carolyn Shapiro (IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law).*
ACS is grateful to the co-sponsors of this event:
Institute of Public Policy and World Affairs at Rockford University
This country is grappling with a crisis in our judiciaries. Many look to state constitutions and state courts to serve as a bulwark against a conservative supermajority at the U.S. Supreme Court whose hyper-partisan decisions have undermined fundamental rights, emboldened the conservative legal movement, and fomented a growing legitimacy crisis. But as we look to state judges to help preserve the rights and institutions fundamental to our democracy, they are facing their own threats from gerrymandered legislatures and from within their own judiciaries.
With the North Carolina Supreme Court potentially poised to override the will of voters and choose its own justice for itself, what steps can be taken to protect the legitimacy and independence of judiciaries throughout the country? Will the undermining of voting rights and the ideological weaponization of ethics rules and impeachment lead to weakened judiciaries that are unable to serve their core mission as protectors of the rule of law?
The American Constitution Society considered these and other looming challenges and the role each of us can play in protecting and strengthening our judiciaries during a February 19 panel.
Featuring:
Dawn Blagrove, Executive Director, Emancipate NC
Robyn Sanders, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Former Law Clerk to Justice Anita Earls, NC Supreme Court
Robert Yablon, Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the State Democracy Research Initiative, University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School
Moderator:
Zack Gima, Vice President for Strategic Engagement, ACS
Please join ACS for a panel discussion aimed at demystifying judicial clerkships, specifically for law students of color and first-generation law students. Participants will learn more about the clerkship process, whether they should apply for a clerkship, the differences between state, federal, trial, and appellate clerkships, the qualities that judges look for in judicial clerks, and the day-to-day experience of being a clerk. Panelists will also provide best practices for navigating the clerkship application process and discuss the importance of increasing diversity in judicial clerkships.
Featuring:
Judge Nancy Abudu, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Justice Anne McKeig, Minnesota Supreme Court
Judge Jamal Whitehead, United States District Court for the Western District of Washington
Judge Latrice Westbrooks, Mississippi Court of Appeals
Moderator:
Julia Saladino, Associate Director, Georgetown University Law Center Office of Public Interest and Community Service
Opening Remarks:
Thea Cohen, Director of Strategic Engagement, American Constitution Society
Since the Supreme Court's 2023 opinion against affirmative action, legislators and litigators have unleashed a torrent of laws and lawsuits targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The Trump administration threatens to further mobilize the federal government against diversity programming through executive orders and "reverse discrimination" lawsuits.
In this event, leading advocates and scholars explore the potential of strategies rooted in the First Amendment to defend and advance inclusion in the face of state DEI bans, private lawsuits, and a potentially hostile federal government.
Featuring:
Shalini Goel Agarwal, Special Counsel, Protect Democracy
Tona Boyd, Civil Rights Expert, Former Associate Director Counsel, NAACP LDF
Taonga Leslie, Director of Policy and Program for Racial Justice, American Constitution Society
Chris Geidner, Columnist and Author, Law Dork & MSNBC
William M. Carter Jr., Professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Law
