Faculty Forum: February 2018

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.

On February 23, Professor Eric Franklin Amarante was a panelist on “Economic Development Challenges in Appalachia” at the West Virginia Law Review Appalachian Justice Symposium. He spoke about the legal challenges facing immigrant entrepreneurs.

The University of Iowa’s Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems Journal will publish Professor Robert Blitt’s most recent manuscript, The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Response to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Rights: A Challenge to Equality and Nondiscrimination under International Law. The article builds on Professor Blitt’s prior scholarship addressing the OIC’s framing of women’s rights, and offers a critical appraisal of the organization’s underlying rationales for rejecting the application of human rights protection based on sexual orientation. Professor Blitt presented a draft of this paper to a works-in-progress workshop sponsored by the American Society of International Law’s (ASIL) International Organizations Interest Group last year.

Professor Blitt was recently appointed to the international academic advisory board of the Advanced Program on Religion and the Rule of Law at Oxford. The program is designed to provide advanced training to early-career scholars and practitioners who are interested in law and religion. The inaugural session begins in July 2018. More information is available at: https://iclrs-ox.org.

The Immigration & Nationality Law Review (INLR) at the University of California, Davis has selected Professor Michael Higdon’s article State Misdemeanant, Federal Felon: Adolescent Sexual Offenders and the INA to reprint in the 2018 edition of the journal. The article originally appeared in the University of Illinois Law Review.

Professor Glenn Reynolds recently appeared on “Special Report with Bret Baier,” talking about higher education bureaucracy and increased education costs.

Professor Greg Stein’s article, Reverse Exactions, has been published as the lead article in the most recent issue of the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal. Professor Stein’s article argues that when a property owner receives permission to develop property in a manner that may harm its neighbors, the neighbors should be permitted to bring “reverse exaction” claims against the government body that granted the permit. Successful claims would compensate the neighbors for the harm the government’s issuance of the permit caused to those neighbors. The government, in turn, could seek reimbursement from the party that undertook the development, which would force the developer to pay the full cost of its development.