Conceptions of racial justice have been revolutionized in recent years by the discovery and documentation of implicit racial bias—subconscious negative associations about people of color that affect conscious behavior— within wide segments of the American population. Legal scholars and practitioners have begun to explore how implicit racial bias affects the development and application of the law. Can the law meaningfully address implicit racial bias, and if so, how? What concrete actions can law students, law professors, practitioners and judges take to increase awareness of implicit racial bias and develop legal solutions to minimize the impact of it on the daily lives of people of color?
Speakers -
Hon. Mark Bennett, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Iowa (moderator)
Roger Clegg, President and General Counsel, Center for Equal Opportunity
Rachel Godsil, Eleanor Bontecou Professor of Law, Seton Hall University School of Law
L. Song Richardson, Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law
An increasing number of federal judges are publicly expressing dismay with federal sentencing policy. Critics express concern that mandatory minimums take much needed discretion away from judges. Reform advocates have also cited mandatory minimum sentences, particularly those for non-violent drug offenses—along with the sentencing guidelines—as contributing to the country’s mass incarceration crisis. Have the guidelines and mandatory minimums contributed to the explosive growth in the federal prison population over the past few decades? Do they achieve the goal of fairer, race-neutral sentencing, or exacerbate existing racial disparities? This panel will examine how judges engage these issues.
Speakers
Kevin Ring, Vice President, Families Against Mandatory Minimums (moderator)
Hon. Lynn Adelman, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Wisconsin
Hon. P. Kevin Castel, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
Hon. George J. Hazel, U.S. District Court, District of Maryland
Hon. Beryl Howell, Chief Judge, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia
In 1988, the Department of Justice under the leadership of Attorney General Edwin Meese published a document entitled The Constitution in 2000 that raised a series of questions about the future of constitutional law. Its stated purpose was to “provide a glimpse of the stakes that are involved in the manner in which the ongoing debate [about how to interpret the Constitution] is resolved in the highest court of the land—the United States Supreme Court.” With Justice Scalia’s passing and the resulting vacancy on the Supreme Court, the future of constitutional law once again hangs in the balance. What are the differences between the progressive and conservative visions of how constitutional law should develop? How will the appointment of a new Justice or new Justices affect constitutional interpretation and key constitutional issues such as race, reproductive autonomy and economic inequality?
Speakers -
Joan Biskupic, Editor in Charge, Legal A airs, Reuters
Michael McConnell, Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Director, Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School; Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Rachel Moran, Dean Emerita and Michael J. Connell Distinguished Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
Melissa Murray, Interim Dean and Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law
Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute; Editor- in-Chief, Cato Supreme Court Review
Steven Shapiro, Legal Director, ACLU
David Strauss, Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
The First Amendment right to free expression holds a special place in the American public mind, conjuring thoughts of reporters who keep us informed and protesters who keep us honest. But in recent years, conservative advocates have advanced First Amendment arguments that some claim enhance the interests of the already powerful at the expense of everyone else. Whether in the campaign nance context, labor law, or commercial speech, they have thus far been successfully enlisting the Supreme Court in their cause. Has something unalterable happened to the cherished First Amendment?
Speakers
Linda Greenhouse, Senior Research Scholar in Law, Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence, and Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law, Yale Law School (moderator)
Tamara Piety, Phyllis Hurley Frey Professor of Law, University of Tulsa College of Law
Martin Redish, Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
Paul Smith, Partner, Jenner & Block
Daniel Tokaji, Charles W. Ebersold and Florence Whitcomb Ebersold Professor of Constitutional Law, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
Marginalized, disproportionately low-income communities, including communities of color, sexual minorities and transgender people, have a fraught relationship with the criminal justice system. Overcriminalization and overincarceration, the inevitable consequences of our current criminal justice policies, rob marginalized communities of financial and human capital, and exacerbate these communities’ lack of political and economic power. Over- and under-policing (in which police aggressively police communities for minor crimes while failing to prevent or investigate major, violent crimes) fail to adequately address threats of violence, both at the hands of criminals and the police. What measures best empower these communities to achieve the political and economic influence to ensure self-determination and prevent continued mistreatment by the criminal justice system?
Speakers
Kanya Bennett, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office (moderator)
Paul Butler, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Lauren-Brooke Eisen, Senior Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice
William Otis, Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Remington Gregg, Legislative Counsel, Human Rights Campaign
While the currently depleted Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, the latest challenge to public unions, activist anti-union litigants have had some success in recent years in restricting the efforts of organized labor to fight for living wages, gender and wage equality, and safe and stable workplace environments. With the Fight for $15 gaining steam, will unions grow in workplaces that are not traditionally organized? What role will unions play in the emerging “gig economy?” And how can organized labor prepare for coming challenges to union cornerstones such as exclusive bargaining agreements and renewed challenges to public sector unions? This panel will focus on what organized labor can do to continue fighting for workers’ rights.
Speakers -
Dorian Warren, Fellow, Roosevelt Institute; Board Chair, Center for Community Change; Host and Executive Producer of MSNBC’s Nerding Out (moderator)
Daniel DiSalvo, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute; Associate Professor of Political Science, Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership, City College of New York –CUNY
Ruben Garcia, Professor of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law
Richard Griffin, Jr., General Counsel, National Labor Relations Board
Judith Scott, General Counsel, Service Employees International Union; Partner, James & Homan PC
