Next Friday, September 19, the Michigan Journal of Race and Law will host a symposium celebrating the journal's twenty years. Cribbing from the announcement:
We will look back at the Journal and its leadership in the field. We will also launch the Journal’s next twenty years, highlighting new directions in scholarship at the intersection of race and law. Program participants include Michigan Law alums Todd Aagaard, ’97, Jasmine Abdel-Khalik, ’00, Jeannine Bell, ’99, Guy-Uriel Charles, ’96, Gabriel “Jack” Chin, ’88, Meera Deo, ’00, Matthew Fletcher, ’97, Luis Fuentes-Rower, ’97, Elizabeth Hinson, ’11, Emily Houh, ’96, Travis Richardson, ’96, Tom Romero II, ’04, Hardy Vieux, ’97, Adam Wolf, ’01, and keynote speaker Dr. Mary Frances Berry, ’70.
Since its founding, the Journal has been a platform for the exploration of issues relating to race, law, and civil rights. It is recognized for publishing cutting edge scholarship that is innovative and probing, including critical race theory, law and economics, immigration, education, criminal justice, and beyond. The Journal takes pride in the many perspectives it embraces, publishing the views of scholars, students, practitioners, and social scientists. Today, the Journal is nationally recognized as a leading journal in the field of civil rights.
The schedule is as follows:
Panel I: Beginnings
9:00-10:15 A.M.
Moderator: Matthew Fletcher, '97, Professor of Law and Director if the Indigenous Law & Policy Center, Michigan State University College of Law
Todd Aagaard, '97, Associate Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law
Emily M.S. Houh, '96, Gustavus Henry Wald Professor of the Law of Contracts, University of Cincinnati College of Law
Travis Richardson, '96, Richardson & Mackoff
Hardy Vieux, '97, Martin & Gitner PLLC
Panel II: Changes
10:30-11:45 A.M.
Moderator: Matthew Tannenbaum, Associate Editor, Race and Curriculum Committee
Regulating Brands: Disparaging Trademarks
Jasmine Abdel-Khalik, '00, Associate Professor of Law, University of Missouri Kansas City School of Law
The Declining Utility of "Hate Crime"
Jeannine Bell, '99, Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
The Shadows of the Roberts' Court Selective Racial Memory: Reclaiming History for a Multiracial Metropolitan America
Tom I. Romero, II, '04, Assistant Provost of IE Research and Curricular Initiatives and Associate Professor of Law, University of Denver Sturm College of Law
Lunch Break
12:00-1:15 P.M.
Panel III: Futures
1:30-2:45 P.M.
Moderator: Britney Littles, Associate Editor, Race and Curriculum Committee
Mainstreaming Equality in Federal Budgeting: Addressing Education Inequalities with Regard to the States
Elizabeth K. Hinson, '11, King & Spalding
Functionally Suspect: Reconceptualizing "Race" as a Suspect Classification
Lauren Sudeall Lucas, Assistant Professor of Law, Georgia State University College of Law
Blackness as Character Evidence: The Strategic Use of Racial Stereotypes in Establishing an Individual's Propensity for Violence
Mikah K. Thompson, Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Missouri Kansas City School of Law; Osman & Smay, LLP
Panel IV: Legal Academia
3:00-4:15 P.M.
Moderator: Emily M.S. Houh
Empirically Investigating Law Professors and Leaders of the Future
Meera E. Deo, '00, Associate Professor of Law, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Law Reviews and the New Counterrepublics
Luis E. Fuentes-Rohwer, '97, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Guy-Uriel Charles, '96, Charles S. Rhyne Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
Justice and Law Journals
Adam Wolf, '01, Wolf Law
Gabriel "Jack" Chin, '88, Professor of Law and Martin Luther King, Jr. Research Scholar, University of California Davis School of Law;
Keynote Address
4:30-6:00 P.M.
Historical Myopia, Excessive Individualism and Remedies for Race Discrimination: The Work that Must be Done
Mary Frances Berry, '70, Ph.D. '66, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania
This will be a fabulous conference — I'm going to be at Savannah Law School for another terrific conference on progressive property that day (more on this very shortly), so I unfortunately won't be able to attend. One of the things that really interests me about scholarship on race and law is how much of it of late has been historical. (Partly, obviously, my perspective is bent by what I write, and thus read, about.) But I think much of the work in this field draws on history; my hope for the field is that as it continues to uncover the deep connections between race and law — and I'd add inequality and mistreatment – in the past, that a lot of the work then connects that important research up to the present. That is, I hope we'll talk about why the past matters.