Professor Joyce Vance was featured in articles in The Washington Post and The New York Times highlighting the Arbery case plea deal. The Washington Post article is titled Federal prosecutors saw a plea deal for Arbery’s killers as racial justice. His family thought otherwise and the New York Times article is titled How a Plea Deal in the Arbery Hate Crime Case Unraveled.
Professor Richard Delgado was recently featured in an article in the ABA Journal titled Nonexistent ‘Critical Race Theory’ curriculum is caught in the crosshairs. The full piece can be viewed on the ABA Journal website.
Alabama Law has named Anil A. Mujumdar as the Director of Diversity & Inclusion and Assistant Professor of Law in Residence. Previously serving as the Interim Director of Diversity & Inclusion, Professor Mujumdar has now stepped into the full-time role while also teaching Introduction to Law, Poverty Law and Human Trafficking, and serving as coach to the BLSA Thurgood Marshall Moot Court Competition Team.
For most of his career, Professor Mujumdar has concentrated his practice in the area of white-collar criminal defense, which he learned through working in private practice with former U.S. Attorney and former U.S. Senator Doug Jones. In addition to his white-collar work, Professor Mujumdar is counsel in prison conditions litigation brought to improve accessibility and mental health care for people with disabilities in the Alabama prison system.
He has represented victims of child sex abuse and continues to litigate civil claims on behalf of survivors of human trafficking. Additionally, he has represented cities and counties in the national opioid multi-district litigation, which the Washington Post has described as “the largest civil action in U.S. history.”
He is one of twelve members of the ACLU’s national Executive Committee, serves on the ACLU’s national Board of Directors and is past-President of the ACLU of Alabama. He currently serves as President of the board of directors for AIDS Alabama and serves on the boards of directors for Legal Services of Alabama, I See Me, Inc. (a local non-profit dedicated to increasing reading skills among of children of color), and the Sojourn Project (a national non-profit that organizes civil rights tours of the Deep South for high school students throughout the country).
He previously served on the boards of directors for Alabama Appleseed, the Magic City Bar Association, and as the president of the South Asian Bar Association Foundation. Since 2010, Professor Mujumdar has co-authored the LexisNexis treatise on Alabama Civil Procedure, and in 2021 he was selected by LexisNexis to serve as the new author of its treatise on Alabama Criminal Procedure formerly authored by the late Alabama Supreme Court Justice Hugh Maddox. Prior to teaching at Alabama Law, he taught as an adjunct at Stillman College, Miles Law School, and The University of Alabama in both the American Studies Department and the Department of Race and Gender Studies.
Professor Mujumdar received his B.A. in English from Birmingham-Southern College, where he ran varsity cross-country and served as SGA President. He received a M.A. in American Studies and a J.D. from the University of Alabama. While in law school, he worked at a local record store and as a DJ on WVUA 90.7 FM.
Professor Julie Hill’s Georgia Law Review article Regulating Bank Reputation Risk was recently cited in a piece titled Are financial regulators universal regulators? Let’s hope not. The full article can be found on The Hill website.
Professor Hill was also recently quoted in a Law360 article titled 4 Things To Know About Biden’s Latest Fed Picks.
On January 25, Professor Jenny Carroll was one of three featured guests on NPR’s On Point who discussed the Oath Keepers, sedition, and the Capitol attack. You can listen to the full segment here.
Professor Joyce Vance published an opinion article on MSNBC titled Trump didn’t sign this newly unearthed 2020 election EO. We need to know why. The full article can view read on the MSNBC website.
Professor Tara Leigh Grove was quoted in the article titled Public defenders rarely make it on the federal bench. Not anymore. The piece is found in Courthouse News Service and can be viewed here.
On January 18, 2022, the Alabama Law Program in Constitutional Studies hosted a Free Speech & Civic Discourse panel featuring free speech experts Nadine Strossen—professor at New York Law School and former president of the ACLU, and Keith Whittington—professor of politics at Princeton University. The panel was moderated by Professor Bryan Fair of Alabama Law and is one of many ongoing events supporting the Program’s larger Civic Engagement Initiative—an effort to facilitate meaningful conversations across political and ideological lines among a diverse group of individuals.
Hosted the day after the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Professor Fair began the conversation by asking Professor Strossen, “What lessons about free speech and civic discourse can we learn from Dr. King’s legacy?”
Professor Strossen explained how Martin Luther King, Jr.’s example of responding to hate with non-violence offers a model for all to follow. Referencing a podcast from Washington Post Opinion writer Jonathan Capehart titled Voices: How segregationist George Wallace became a model for racial reconciliation, Professor Strossen shared how a compassionate act from Wallace’s political opponent, Shirely Chisholm, led to Wallace eventually renouncing segregation and the racism he so vehemently supported through much of his life and career.
Professor Whittington dove into how free speech and civic discourse fit particularly into the university environment and discussed some of the differences between government or publics university settings and private environments, including private businesses and universities. He highlighted the challenges universities face in combatting misinformation, while also allowing for true academic freedom and diversity of ideas—advocating for a defense of free speech and thought within academic institutions.
The conversation evolved to discuss, in juxtaposition, the protected rights of private social media companies to restrict speech on their sites and the potentially unconstitutional government pressures put on these businesses to censor speech. The panel also highlighted the importance of protecting human rights and free speech on a local level—which ultimately influences whether or not individual rights, already protected by law, are going to exist.
To learn more about the panelists, you can check out their books which are available for purchase online. Professor Strossen is the author of the book HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship and Professor Whittington is the author of the book Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech.
Professor Shalini Bhargava Ray wrote a SCOTUS argument preview titled Justices will revisit whether certain noncitizens in lengthy detention are entitled to bond hearings. Read the full preview on SCOTUSblog.
As a follow-up, she also published an argument analysis titled Justices grapple with the legacy of a 2001 immigration detention case on the SCOTUSblog.
Professor J. Shahar Dillbary and his co-author William Landes (University of Chicago) recently published a new casebook titled Law & Economics: Theory, Cases and Other Materials. Marrying law and economics, this book analyzes and sheds new light on major areas of the law, leading court decisions, and legislation through the prism of economics and behavioral economics—providing insights for theorists, policymakers, practitioners, and litigants. Using detailed case notes, comments, and examples, it explains why future lawyers should care about economic analysis of the law and how economics can and should play a role in litigation and conflict resolution. Learn more about Law & Economics: Theory, Cases and Other Matierials on the Aspen Publishing site.
