On June 30, ACS will host its annual Supreme Court Review panel discussion examining the current Supreme Court Term as it draws to a close. Leading experts will discuss the Court's noteworthy decisions and analyze emerging trends for what could be one of the most consequential Terms in recent history.
Welcome Remarks:
Christopher Wright Durocher, ACS Vice President of Policy and Program
Featuring:
Thomas Goldstein, Partner, Goldstein and Russell; Co-Founder and Publisher, SCOTUSblog (Moderator)
Caroline Mala Corbin, Professor of Law & Dean's Distinguished Scholar, University of Miami School of Law
Kirti Datla, Director of Strategic Legal Advocacy, Earthjustice
Deepak Gupta, Principal, Gupta Wessler
Darrell A. H. Miller, Melvin G. Shimm Professor of Law & Associate Dean for Intellectual Life, Duke University School of Law
Ediberto Román, Professor of Law, Florida International University College of Law
Please join the American Constitution Society for a conversation with Elie Mystal, Justice Correspondent & Columnist, The Nation, about his new book, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution. The author will be in conversation with Leah Litman, Assistant Professor of Law at The University of Michigan School of Law.
About Allow Me to Retort:
Allow Me to Retort is an easily digestible argument about what rights we have, what rights conservatives are trying to take away, and how to stop them. Mystal explains how to protect the rights of women and people of color instead of cowering to the absolutism of gun owners and bigots. He explains the legal way to stop everything from police brutality to political gerrymandering, just by changing a few judges and justices. He strips out all of the fancy jargon conservatives like to hide behind and lays bare the truth of their project to keep America forever tethered to its slaveholding past.
You can purchase Allow Me to Retorthere, or at your local bookseller.
Please join the American Constitution Society for a conversation with the author of Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights, Valena Beety, Professor of Law and Deputy Director of the Academy for Justice at Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, about her new book. The author will be in conversation with Christina Swarns, Executive Director of the Innocence Project.
About Manifesting Justice:
Manifesting Justice focuses on the shocking story of Valena Beety's client Leigh Stubbs—a young, queer woman in Mississippi who, because of her sexual orientation, was convicted of a horrific crime she did not commit. Beety weaves Stubbs's harrowing narrative through the broader story of a broken criminal justice system where defendants—including disproportionate numbers of women of color and queer individuals—are convicted due to racism, prejudice, coerced confessions, and false identifications.
You can purchase Manifesting Justice here, or at your local bookseller.
Please join the American Constitution Society for a conversation with the author of Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality, Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Dean of Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University; Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School; and Professor of History at Harvard University. The author will be in conversation with Christina Beeler, Voting Rights Staff Attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project; ACS Next Generation Leader; former ACS Board Member 2017-2019.
About Civil Rights Queen:
Born to an aspirational blue-collar family during the Great Depression, Constance Baker Motley was expected to find herself a good career as a hair dresser. Instead, she became the first black woman to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court, the first of ten she would eventually argue. The only black woman member in the legal team at the NAACP's Inc. Fund at the time, she defended Martin Luther King in Birmingham, helped to argue in Brown vs. The Board of Education, and played a critical role in vanquishing Jim Crow laws throughout the South. She was the first black woman elected to the state Senate in New York, the first woman elected Manhattan Borough President, and the first black woman appointed to the federal judiciary.
Civil Rights Queen captures the story of a remarkable American life, a figure who remade law and inspired the imaginations of African Americans across the country.
You can purchase Civil Rights Queenhere or at your local bookseller.
The U.S. Supreme Court is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis. Recent revelations regarding Ginni Thomas's political activities and how they relate to cases that have or might come before her husband, Justice Clarence Thomas, have drawn renewed attention to the lack of a binding code of ethics for Supreme Court justices. Already bruised and battered by the controversial confirmations of Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett and a series of decisions that appear more political than jurisprudential, the perception that each justice decides for themselves what is and isn't ethical further weakens the Court's reputation and legitimacy before a skeptical country.
Join ACS for a discussion of the approaches the judiciary and Congress might pursue to create an effective, binding code of ethics for Supreme Court justices and the ways in which such a move could begin to restore legitimacy and trust in an impartial Supreme Court.
Featured Speakers: Kimberly Humphrey, Senior Legislative Counsel, Alliance for Justice, Moderator Veronica Root Martinez, Professor of Law, Robert & Marion Short Scholar, Director, Program on Ethics, Compliance & Inclusion, University of Notre Dame Law School Louis J Virelli III, Professor of Law, Stetson University College of Law
The Senate has confirmed Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson as the next associate justice and first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Her confirmation fulfills a promise made by both President Biden and the Reconstruction Amendments. This is a momentous occasion deserving of celebration. But in its shadow lurks a danger we cannot ignore, reflected in the racist and rights-depriving rhetoric deployed by some who opposed her confirmation.
Join ACS as we celebrate this historic confirmation, while grappling with the current disfunction of the confirmation process and the conservative threats to our substantive due process rights, which underpin reproductive rights, marriage equality, and a host of personal rights modern Americans take for granted but may be poised to lose.
Featured Speakers: Sophia Carrillo, ACS Next Generation Leader and Los Angeles Chapter Path to the Bench Working Group Chair, Moderator Yvette McGee Brown, Partner, Jones Day; Former Justice, Ohio Supreme Court Russ Feingold, President, ACS Kimberly Mutcherson, Co-Dean and Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
