Video

The Right and its Efforts to Unravel the Weave of Nondiscrimination Policies

This general attendance session provides the foundation to four detailed workshops on the First Amendment. The radical right is working on several fronts to undermine the foundations of non discrimination policies in various fora across the country. Christian law student groups have filed a series of eight lawsuits against public universities claiming exemptions from non-discrimination rules that include sexual orientation provisions. What are the commonalities between religious belief and sexual orientation identity issues and what is the analysis when these liberties conflict? What is the right’s strategy and is it winning? What is the LGBT-inclusive “side” of the issue and how do we explain it?

Weave of Nondiscrimination (pdf)
CLSvASU Complaint (pdf)
AZ CLS bill (pdf)
Moral Conflict & Liberty (doc)
CLSSettlementAgreement (pdf)
CLSvASU_Complaint (pdf)
CLS-SIUsettlement (pdf)
Student Religious Group That Discriminates Should Not Get Public Funding, Americans United Tells Appellate Court (pdf)

Moderator:

Paul M. Smith is a partner in Jenner & Block’s Washington, DC office. Mr. Smith has had an active Supreme Court practice for two decades, including oral arguments in twelve Supreme Court cases. These arguments have included LULAC v. Perry and Vieth v. Jubelirer, two congressional redistricting cases, Lawrence v. Texas, involving the constitutionality of the Texas sodomy statute. Mr. Smith graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College in 1976 and received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal. From 1980-81, Mr. Smith was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Mr. Smith is a current member of the Board of Governors of the District of Columbia Bar. He is also Chair of the National Board of Directors of The American Constitution Society, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund.

Speakers:

Mark Agrast is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Prior to joining the Center for American Progress, Agrast was Counsel and Legislative Director to Congressman William D. Delahunt of Massachusetts (1997-2003). He previously served as a top aide to Massachusetts Congressman Gerry E. Studds (1992-97) and practiced international law with the Washington office of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue (1985-91). During his years on Capitol Hill, Agrast played a prominent role in shaping laws on civil and constitutional rights, terrorism and civil liberties, criminal justice, patent and copyright law, antitrust, and other matters within the jurisdiction of the House Committee on the Judiciary. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, he received his B.A. summa cum laude from Case Western Reserve University in 1978, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar from 1978-81, and received his J.D. in 1985 from Yale Law School. Agrast has been a leader in a number of professional and civic organizations, including the American Bar Association, in which he serves on the 37-member Board of Governors. He is a past chair of the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities and represents the section on the Executive Board of the ABA Center for Human Rights. He was elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation in 2001.

Professor Chai Feldblum is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Federal Legislation Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center. Professor Feldblum graduated from Harvard Law School and clerked for Judge Frank M. Coffin on the First Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Harry A. Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court. She has been actively involved in federal legislative issues affecting the LGBT community since 1988, including helping to draft the Employment Nondiscrimination Act and launching the Moral Values Project (www.moralvaluesproject.org) to advance sexual and gender equality. Professor Feldblum's recent articles include Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion (2006) and Gay is Good: The Case for Marriage Equality & More (2005).

Professor Andrew Koppelman is the John Paul Stevens Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law. Koppelman, who joined the law school faculty in fall 1997, is an expert in constitutional law and political philosophy. His current research focuses on paternalism and perfectionism in the law, with special attention to the enforcement of morals. He is the author of The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law, University of Chicago Press, and Same Sex, Different States: When Same-Sex Marriages Cross State Lines, 2006, Yale U. Press.

Professor Jennifer L. Levi is an Associate Professor of Law at Western New England College School of Law. Professor Levi has dedicated her career to fighting for the rights of women, children, the poor, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered clients. Most recently, Professor Levi was senior staff attorney for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in Boston. Prior to that, she was a visiting professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law in Chicago. She has worked as an associate attorney for two Chicago law firms, and clerked in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston. Professor Levi received her A.B. from Wellesley College and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.