Professor Alan Weinstein was a speaker on a national webinar presented by the American Planning Association on Friday, October 14. Titled “Reed vs. Town of Gilbert – One Year Later,”  the webinar analyzed how lower courts are applying the Court’s “absolute” approach to the issue of content-neutrality for regulations of signs and other forms of expression. His presentation noted that while no court has yet ruled that regulations that distinguish between commercial and non-commercial content are content-based, both a federal district court and a Texas appeals court have ruled that a regulation that distinguishes between on-site and off-site signs based on the content of the message displayed is content-based and subject to strict scrutiny. Weinstein agreed with the federal district court’s rejection of Justice Alito’s characterization of onsite/off-site distinctions as content-neutral in light of Alito’s failure to provide any rationale for why a regulation that determines regulatory treatment based on the message displayed on the sign should not be considered content-based under Justice Thomas’s “on its face” rule in Reed. He also discussed a number of Courts of Appeal cases in which a regulation was found to be content-neutral and upheld under intermediate scrutiny before Reed, was then vacated and remanded by the Supreme Court after Reed, and on remand was found to be content-based and failed to survive struct scrutiny. 

Professor Karin Mika presented at the SALT conference (Sept 30th -Oct.2) as a member of a panel called, “Social Justice in the Legal Writing Classroom.” The panel discussed ways in which we incorporated issues of social justice, tolerance, and inclusion in the problems assigned in our legal writing classes. Professor Mika’s part focused on recent problems she has assigned, including students’ rights to wear Black Lives Matter supportive shirts at public school extracurricular events, as well as her efforts to discuss current controversial events in her Legal Writing classroom in an effort to connect the students to their passions about the law and injustice. These discussions focus on current events, such as the protest kneeling while the national anthem is being played, transgender discrimination, and issues regarding prison reform and disparate sentencing.

Professor Chris Sagers was among the recipients of the 2016 Golden Apple Award, an award issued to several CSU faculty and staff each year by the Young Alumni Council of the CSU Alumni Association. Recipients are nominated by one or more students or graduates, and the awards are issued to recognize outstanding contributions to the lives of students. 

Professor Matthew W. Green Jr. presented at the Eleventh Annual Colloquium on Current Scholarship in Labor and Employment Law in Seattle, Washington on September 24, 2016.  Professor Greens’ presentation explored the ways in which the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision may be used to advance the rights of gays and lesbians in the area of employment discrimination.  Professor Green’s discussion tracked his recent work-in-progress, which explores the ways in which Obergefell’s analysis should transcend the issue of marriage equality.  The colloquium was co-sponsored by the University of Washington School of Law and Seattle University School of Law.     

Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio will co-edit, with Dean and Professor Michael Scharf of Case Western Reserve University School of Law, a book entitled “The Legacy of Ad Hoc Tribunals in International Criminal Law: Assessing the ICTY and the ICTR.”  The book will be published by Cambridge University Press in late 2017, and it will be a collected volume assessing various legacy aspects of the two ad hoc tribunals.  Both Professors Sterio and Scharf will, in addition to serving as co-editors, contribute several chapters to this volume.

Professor Lolita Buckner Inniss’essay discussing the highlights of her almost completed book, The Princeton Fugitive Slave: James Collins Johnson, has been published in the print version of the October 5, 2016 Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW). The article is also available online at this link.  The print and online versions of PAW have a combined circulation of approximately 100,000.

Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Law, wrote in the DealBook section of today’s New York Times about United States v. American Express, a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dealing the Justice Department a major setback in its long effort to bring more competition to the payment cards sector. You can view the article here.

Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, C|M|LAW’s Steven W. Percy Distinguished Professor of Law, has been selected as a member of the Anti-Defamation league’s 2016-2017 Glass Leadership Institute. ADL Glass Leadership Institute participants are nominated and selected through a competitive process. They are committed to civil rights, human relations, and anti-bias education, and recognize that religious freedom for the Jewish people demands vigilance and both proactive and defensive attention. Institute participants attend monthly educational and leadership programming about the substantive issues of ADL’s agenda and attend ADL’s National Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. in the spring.

Leon M and Gloria Plevin Professor of Law Browne Lewis presented at the Central States Law Schools Association Conference on September 23, 2016. The Conference was hosted by the University of North Dakota School of Law. Professor Lewis discussed the history of the right to die movement in the United States. She compared that history with the movements in Europe. Professor Lewis also analyzed the current state of physician-assisted suicide law and predicted that the issue would probably be heard by the United States Supreme Court in a few years.

Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio presented on September 23 at the American Society of International Law (ASIL) Midwest Interest Group Annual Workshop, at the University of Wisconsin Law School, in Madison, Wisconsin.  Professor Sterio’s presentation was entitled “On Genocide: The ICTY Karadzic Conviction.”  Professor Sterio currently serves as Co-Chair of the ASIL-Midwest Interest Group and was one of three main Workshop organizers.