On Monday, April 16, 2012, the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice will host the last Human Rights Happy Hour of the spring semester. Professor Benjamin Gregg of the University of Texas at Austin will present a talk entitled “The Social Construction of Human Rights in Africa.”
The Law School will host a screening of Hot Coffee, a Sundance documentary film about the McDonald’s hot coffee case, Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants, and its aftermath, on Thursday, April 12, 2012.
The University of Texas School of Law will host a symposium entitled “Countermajoritarianism and the Courts” on March 30–31, 2012. The symposium will be the first systematic reexamination in years of the extent to which the United States Supreme Court can meaningfully be described as a “countermajoritarian institution” in American political life.
On Thursday, March 29, 2012, the University of Texas School of Law will host a conversation on prosecutorial error and oversight. The event is part of the U.S.-wide tour, “Prosecutorial Oversight: A National Dialogue in the Wake of Connick v. Thompson,” and will be held from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Francis Auditorium (TNH 2.114).
Gary Jacobsohn, Malcolm Macdonald Professor in Constitutional and Comparative Law in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin, will take part in a colloquium and celebration of his recently published book, Constitutional Identity, on Friday, March 23, from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Sheffield Room at the Law School.
The Texas Journal on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights will hold its 2012 symposium, “Achieving Equal Access to Fair Credit: The Civil Rights Implications of Consumer Lending Practices and How Recent Developments May Change the Industry,” on March 22, 2012.
The Chicano/Hispanic Law Students’ Association is hosting the annual Mexican-American Bar Association of Texas’s Law Student Conference on March 2 and 3, 2012, at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center. During this event, law students and attorneys from across Texas will attend programming and discussions on professional development and issues affecting Hispanic communities in Texas.
“Lynching and the Death Penalty” will be held at the University of Texas School of Law on Friday and Saturday, March 23-24, 2012 in the Eidman Courtroom. The symposium will bring together leading scholars and advocates to explore the historical link between lynching and the death penalty, their similarities and differences, and the enduring role of lynching and race discrimination in contemporary capital litigation.
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Ray Bonner will discuss his recent book, Anatomy of Injustice, at the University of Texas School of Law on March 5, 2012, from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in TNH 3.142. Bonner’s book recounts the efforts of Diana Holt, ’94, who represented a young mentally disabled man, Edward Lee Elmore, who had been convicted of murdering an elderly woman in Greenwood, South Carolina, in 1982.
On Saturday, March 3, 2012, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., the University of Texas at Austin will host “the biggest open house in Texas”—Explore UT. This annual event is a hands-on introduction to the University to schoolchildren from kindergarten through high school through a variety of events, performances, lectures, exhibits, and other activities. As in past years, the Law School will host several events.