How courts have affected public schools addressing issues such as corporal punishment, drug testing, and transgender restrooms will be analyzed by a constitutional law expert in the next African American Workshop and Speaker Series lecture.
Justin Driver, Harry N. Wyatt Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, will present "Are Public Schools Becoming Constitution-Free Zones?" April 8 from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Redwood Auditorium in the Erb Memorial Union. It is the last event of this year’s African American Workshop and Speaker Series. Driver also will be interviewed on UO Today.
Driver will address how the U.S. Supreme Court’s treatment of topics such as race, sex, religion, crime, liberty, patriotism and equality has shaped public education and the constitutional rights of students around the country. He will delve into concepts explored in his 2018 book, “The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind,” in which he says that “since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has regularly abdicated responsibility in protecting students’ rights, risking transforming public schools into Constitution-free zones and in turn jeopardizing our basic constitutional order.”
Driver is a recipient of the American Society for Legal History’s William Nelson Cromwell Article Prize, has been published widely in leading law reviews and has written extensively for lay audiences, including pieces in Slate, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic, where he was a contributing editor.
“We are honored to have Justin Driver as our final speaker for the 2018-2019 African American Workshop and Speaker Series to round out another year of dynamic change agents,” said Yvette Alex-Assensoh, vice president for equity and inclusion. “He expertly addresses and intertwines legal issues, education and race. This approach is particularly important as court decisions assume a more pronounced role in the life of our nation.”
Previous to Driver’s position at the University of Chicago Law School, he clerked for Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Sandra Day O’Connor. He is a graduate of Brown University; the University of Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review.
He has a master’s degree in education from Duke University and taught civics and American history to high school students. He is a member of the American Law Institute, the American Constitution Society’s Academic Advisory Board and an editor of the Supreme Court Review.
The event is free and open to the public, but an RSVP is requested. The event is wheelchair accessible; other accommodations can be requested through the RSVP.
The African American Speaker and Workshop Series came about as a result of the 2016 demands of the Black Student Task Force. It is sponsored by the Office of the President and led by the Division of Equity and Inclusion, and it brings to campus scholars and practitioners who are experts in a range of equity and inclusion issues.
This is the third year of the series. For further information, check the Division of Equity and Inclusion website.
—By tova stabin, University Communications