Faculty Forum is a monthly feature written by Teri Baxter highlighting the achievements of faculty at UT Law including publications in academia and the media, speaking engagements, interviews, awards, and other accomplishments.
Academic Success Director Renee Allen and her co-author DeShun Harris (Texas A&M) presented #SocialJustice: Combatting Implicit Bias in an Age of Millennials, Colorblindness & Microaggressions, at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law on October 12th. The symposium focused on Today’s Law School Curriculum & An Increasingly Diverse Society. The article will be published in an upcoming issue of the University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender & Class.
Director Allen’s article Winning! 5 Key Strategies for an Effective Conference Presentation, with Alicia Jackson (Florida A&M), was published in the Summer/Autumn 2017 edition of The Learning Curve, a publication of the AALS Section on Academic Support.
Professor Doug Blaze presented at the Southeastern Clinical Conference on October 20th, on the first plenary panel. The focus was “Back to Our Roots: Renewing the Social Justice Mission of Clinics and Externships.”
On October 28, Professor Zack Buck participated as part of The Next Steps in Health Reform 2017 Conference at American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. The event was headlined by former HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and former California congressman Henry Waxman. His presentation was Medicaid Cost Concerns: Managed Care and Challenges at the State Level.
On October 30, Professor Buck gave a lecture and led a discussion at the University of Tennessee Department of Public Health, on the “Basics of Public Health Law,” for doctoral public health students.
Earlier in October, Professor Joan Heminway gave a presentation on the use of for-profit corporations in the Green Economy at the Bryan Cave/Edward A. Smith Symposium: The Green Economy at the UMKC School of Law. The presentation was part of a panel covering federal income tax and state entity law entitled “Forms of Doing Business in the Green Economy.”
At the end of September, Professor Lucy Jewel participated in two panels at the 21st Biennial LatCrit conference in Orlando, Florida. On a panel entitled Critical Voices in Feminist Legal Theory, Professor Jewel presented her work on how new biological and neuroscientific theories can support novel policy choices and legal remedies to protect society’s most vulnerable citizens. On a separate panel entitled Debtfare, Prisonfare, and Workfare, Professor Jewel explained how rhetoric can reinforce harmful societal attitudes toward mass incarceration, excess consumer debt, and low-wage labor.
On October 10, Professor Jewel spoke at a Your Rights, Your Thoughts event sponsored the Diversity Committee within the Division of Student Life at the University of Tennessee. Professor Jewel explained Tennessee’s Campus Free Speech Protection Act and responded to student and staff questions about the new law. Later that week, Professor Jewel was an invited speaker on the topic of gender hierarchies in legal education in a symposium on gender equality hosted by the Toledo Law Review.
Professor George Kuney is moderating and presenting a series of webinars in association with Financial Poise and West Publishing covering legal ethics issues. The three-part series, Best Practices regarding Technology, Recent Cases and Decisions, and How to Avoid Malpractice and Disciplinary Actions, debuts at the close of the months of September, October, and November. Professor Paula Schaefer presented as part of the panel for the first webinar. Financial Poise is an organization created by former UT Clayton Center Visiting Professor John Friedland and is based in Chicago.
On October 13-14, 2015, Professor Tom Plank attended and participated in a drafting session of the Drafting Committee of the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) on Revised Articles 1, 3, and 9 of the Uniform Law Commercial Code in Philadelphia, PA. This revision of the UCC is to accommodate a proposed federal electronic mortgage registration act that the Federal Reserve Bank of NY is drafting on behalf of the US Treasury department. As a member of the American Law Institute (ALI) Consultative Group on this revision (the UCC is sponsored and approved by the ULC and the ALI) and a ULC observer, Professor Plank participated in the discussion, and a few of his significant suggestions were adopted.
Professor Dean Rivkin was quoted in the Knoxville News Sentinel article “Students, UT prof among those urging school board to vote against harassment policy change.” In collaboration with Professors Joan Heminway, Briana Rosenbaum, and Brenda McGee (UT Law ’84 and Pro Bono Community Cooperating Attorney for the Education Law Practicum), Professor Rivkin presented a statement to the Knox County School Board in opposition to a proposed policy change that would have eliminated express student harassment protections for “actual or perceived gender” and “sexual orientation.” One of our former students, Michael Davis, along with a host of articulate teachers, students, and others, testified. Professor Heminway accompanied Professor Rivkin along with four Practicum students.
Professor Paula Schaefer was an invited speaker at the Midwest Clinical Legal Education Conference in Lawrence, Kansas in October. She spoke in a plenary session titled “Building on Best Practices: Professional Identity, Role Assumption, and Other Professional Skills Across Learning Experiences.” The session highlighted material from the 2015 book “Building on Best Practice: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World” and discussed new suggestions for integrating “public citizen lawyering” into the law school curriculum.