School of Law Logo6:12am 11/14/2024

Past Symposia

The Statutory Public Interest in Closing the Pay Gap Bornstein, Stephanie

2019

This essay seeks to expose a significant proportion of the gender pay gap for what it actually is: the result of unfair competition and unfair labor practices that injure the public interest and the U.S. economy.

Redefining Clearly Established Rights after Ferguson: § 1983 Claims and Community Policing from Hope v. Pelzer to Kingsley v. Hendrickson. April 1, 2016

The highly publicized and controversial deaths of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and Tamir Rice have sparked a national conversation about community policing and the use of deadly force. This symposium will draw together experts from across the nation to examine the complicated set of issues that arises in the context of policing and use of force. The colloquy will consider both the constitutional and civil rights dimensions of the use of force, with particular focus on avenues for rendering existing legal remedies more responsive to current concerns. Attention will be paid to issues of racial justice as well as a range of pragmatic, on-the-ground aspects of (and impediments to) reform. The conversation will also include a lunchtime panel of law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and practitioners who will offer a first-hand account of the challenges associated with community policing and the use of force.

Participating Scholars:

Bryan Adamson, Seattle University School of Law

Mary Fan, University of Washington School of Law

John Gross, University of Alabama School of Law

Song Richardson, University of California, Irvine School of Law

Lunchtime Law Enforcement Community Panel:

Steven D. Anderson, city of Tuscaloosa chief of police

Kira Fonteneau, Jefferson County Community Law Office

Lyn Head, Tuscaloosa County district attorney

Praveen Krishna, assistant United States attorney, Department of Justice for the Northern District of Alabama

Yuri Linetsky, University of Alabama School of Law

Antidiscrimination Law and Policy After Hobby Lobby

Friday, March 27, 2015

In her dissenting opinion in last term’s much-discussed Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., Justice Ginsburg famously stated, “The Court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.” One of the “mines” that she identifies is the prospective impact of the Hobby Lobby on confrontations between religious beliefs and LGBT antidiscrimination measures. For its spring symposium, the Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review has drawn together an exceptional compliment of scholars to explore this evolving landscape.

Hobby Lobby has garnered a great deal of attention from a range of scholarly quarters, but particularly among those interested in LGBT equality/antidiscrimination issues as well as those interested in issues surrounding religious liberty. While the decision itself involved a challenge to the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Hobby Lobby may also have the potential to chart a new legal landscape with respect to a wide range of issues involving the intersection of religious liberty and LGBT equality/antidiscrimination measures. This colloquy will consider these tensions in light of the latest relevant missive from the Supreme Court.

Participating Scholars:

Leslie C. Griffin, William S. Boyd Professor of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Paul Horwitz, Gordon Rosen Professor of Law, University of Alabama

Andrew M. Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law, Northwestern University

Ira C. Lupu, F. Elwood and Eleanor Davis Professor Emeritus of Law, George Washington University

Elizabeth Sepper, Associate Professor of Law, Washington University in St. Louis

Lunch speaker:

David Dinielli, Deputy Legal Director, Southern Poverty Law Center