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Teach-ins at Pitt and New Mexico tackle gay marriage issues Adam Henry Gay marriage is getting special academic attention this week at two law schools. This afternoon a panel of three professors and two students led a teach-in on the topic at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, home and host institution to JURIST's Law School News. Speaking first to a capacity audience, Professor Deborah Brake analogized current sex-based barriers to marriage to race-based barriers found unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia. She suggested that states might remove sex altogether when they have occasion to redefine marriage. Professor John Parry then addressed the "federalism phenomenon" that divergent state responses have precipitated. Most provocatively, he questioned the value of the marriage institution given social science trends, and suggested (without subscribing to it) that marriage might be better governed by churches than by states. Lastly, Professor Rhonda Wasserman reviewed the relevant jurisprudence on choice of law before concluding that a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage is unnecessary under "relatively well accepted" understandings of the Full Faith and Credit Clause's limitations. The University of New Mexico School of Law played host to a similar teach-in on gay marriage Wednesday. Today's Daily Lobo recounts the arguments advanced by UNM panelists here. Elsewhere, Thursday's Harvard Crimson continues the "resurrection of reparations discourse" that JURIST spoke of Tuesday. Professor Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School has pledged to continue his legal effort to obtain reparations for survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race riots. US District Court Judge James O. Ellison last Friday dismissed the lawsuit he initiated on statute of limitations grounds. Professor Ogletree insists, however, that he's prepared to fight "to insure that the injustices that occurred in Tulsa aren't repeated and are redressed in the courts." The Crimson has the full story here. Finally, the Yale Daily News reports today on a bill approved last week by the US House Armed Services Committee to strengthen the controversial Solomon Amendment. Called the ROTC and Military Recruiter Equal Access to Campus Act of 2004, it clarifies the language of the Solomon Amendment to ensure that ROTC and military recruiters enjoy "fair and equal access for recruiting purposes" and increases penalties for noncompliance by adding to the agencies that may withhold federal funds. Read the Committee's press release on the bill, which soon faces full House consideration, here, and the YDN's full story here. See JURIST's most recent report on Solomon-related litigation here. 2:35 PM | | link to this post | latest Law School News
Newdow sharpened arguments in UC Berkeley moot Adam Henry Wednesday's UCBerkeley News offers an excellent collection of resources relating to Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, better known as the Pledge case, argued today in the US Supreme Court. Resources include a webcast of oral arguments made by Newdow and Professor Vikram Amar of the Hastings College of the Law in a moot court hearing at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law in February. Boalt's American Constitution Society, the organizer of the moot court exercise, offers all of the briefs here. Newdow actually participated in several such exercises to sharpen his case for today's arguments. See, for example, JURIST's report here on his participation in a mock trial at the University of Washington School of Law. In other law school news, the Boston College Third World Law Journal's latest issue carries an article called "Reparations Talk" by Professor Alfred Brophy of the University of Alabama School of Law. Professor Brophy has made headlines, including JURIST's here, by publicly calling on his university to acknowledge and apologize for its historical ties to slavery, and to consider paying reparations to descendants of slaves. Subtitled "Reparations for Slavery and the Tort Law Analogy," his article in the Journal assesses optimistically the possible role of tort law in assigning moral culpability and ultimately in obtaining reparations payments. Click on the title above for the full article. 3:54 PM | | link to this post | latest Law School News
First law school in Phoenix to open by January 2005 Adam Henry Phoenix, AZ may have its first law school by the first of next year. Chicago-based Sterling Capital Partners hopes to open a new, for-profit institution, tentatively called the Phoenix International School of Law, there by January of 2005. According to today's Arizona Republic, Sterling plans to expand enrollment from an initial 75 to a fuller 300-400, and aims to take the school from the fourth to the second tier in the space of just "a few years." But Phoenix International will not have the city to itself for long, as the Arizona State University College of Law in Tempe has intentions of adding a Phoenix campus in coming years. The Republic has the full story here, and JURIST has an earlier report here. Meanwhile, from cooler climes, Dean Robert V. Ward, Jr. of the Southern New England School of Law makes the case for corporate reparations for slavery in today's Providence Journal. Dean Ward calls the dismissal of a lawsuit against major American corporations a "setback" to the reparations cause. Read the complaint in that suit here [PDF]. He argues, however, that having profited from "wealth secured on the backs of others," such corporations have a moral, if not legal, imperative to disgorge some of their profits to help empower present African-American communities. Ward's call upon corporations, available from the Journal here, follows a recent call upon his university by Professor Alfred Brophy (see JURIST's report here), and may signal the resurrection of reparations discourse in legal academic circles. 5:34 PM | | link to this post | latest Law School News
University of Iowa names its first female law dean Adam Henry  The University of Iowa College of Law has named Professor Carolyn Jones of the University of Connecticut School of Law as its 16th dean. She will formally take the administrative reins from N. William Hines, the country's longest-tenured law school dean, on July 1, and will become the first female to lead the school. For Professor Jones, the appointment is a homecoming: she hails from Caroll, IA and earned both her undergraduate and law degrees at the university. According to the university's news release, her legal research specialty is "tax law from a feminist perspective." Today's Daily Iowan has more on her appointment.2:48 PM | | link to this post | latest Law School News Comments by Haloscan |
