The Constitutional Law Center invites the nation's leading constitutional scholars to Drake Law School to engage students and faculty in discussions about current issues. Speakers deliver a formal lecture, teach a class, and meet with students informally.  The lectures are held at 3 p.m. in Cartwright Hall room 213.

2012-2013 Lecturers

Constitution Day Speaker
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Professor Louis Michael Seidman, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center

“On Constitutional Disobedience"
3 pm, Drake Law School - Cartwright Hall, Room 213

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1971, Professor Seidman served as a law clerk for J. Skelly Wright of the D.C. Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He then was a staff attorney with the D.C. Public Defender Service until joining the Law Center faculty in 1976. He teaches a variety of courses in the fields of constitutional and criminal law. He is co-author of a constitutional law casebook and the author of many articles concerning criminal justice and constitutional law. His most recent books are On Constitutional Disobedience (Oxford, forthcoming 2013), Silence and Freedom (Stanford 2007), Equal Protection of the Laws (Foundation 2002), and Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review (Yale 2001). In 2011, Seidman was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

*This program is approved for one hour of Iowa and one hour of Federal CLE credit.


Thursday, January 31, 2013
Professor Nathan J. Brown, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs

“Islam and Constitutionalism in Egypt’s New Constitution"
3 pm, Drake Law School - Cartwright Hall, Room 213

Nathan J. Brown is a professor of political science and international affairs at The George Washington University.  His expertise is in the area of Islamist movements, Palestinian politics, and Arab law and constitutionalism.  He is the author of several books on Arab politics including his latest , When Victory is Not an Option: Islamist Movements in Arab Politics (2012). 

In 2009, Brown was named a Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation of New York; for the 2009–2010 academic year he was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In addition to his academic work Brown has served on advisory committees for Human Rights Watch and the committees drafting the Palestinian and Iraqi constitutions. He has also served as a      consultant to USAID, the United Nations Development Program, and several nongovernmental organizations.

* This program is approved for one hour of state and Federal CLE credit. 


Thursday, April 11, 2013
Professor Marci Hamilton, Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

"The Constitution and Child Protection from Religious Actors"
3 pm, Drake Law School - Cartwright Hall, Room 213


Professor Hamilton is one of the United States’ leading church/state scholars and holds the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.  She is the author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge University Press 2008, 2012) and God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law (Cambridge University Press 2005, 2007).  She has been a columnist on constitutional issues since 2000.  She has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, New York University School of Law, Emory University School of Law, and the Princeton Theological Seminary.
 
Professor Hamilton has served as constitutional and federal law counsel in many important clergy sex abuse and religious land use cases in state and federal courts, and has testified before numerous state legislatures regarding elimination of the statutes of limitations for childhood sex abuse.  She is frequently asked to advise Congress and state legislatures on the constitutionality of pending legislation and to consult in cases involving important constitutional issues.  She was lead counsel for the City of Boerne, Texas, in Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997), before the Supreme Court in its seminal federalism and church/state case holding the Religious Freedom Restoration Act unconstitutional.

Professor Hamilton clerked for Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the United States Supreme Court and Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  She received her J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. She also received her M.A. in Philosophy and M.A., high honors, in English from Pennsylvania State University, and her B.A., summa cum laude, from Vanderbilt University.  She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif.
*This program is approved for one hour of Iowa and one hour of Federal CLE credit.


Thursday, April 18, 2013
Professor Aziz Huq, University of Chicago Law School

"Amending the U.S. Constitution: The Surprising Reasons Why it Should Remain Difficult" 
4 pm, Drake Law School - Cartwright Hall, Room 213 

Professor Huq earned his BA summa cum laude in International Studies and French from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1996 and his law degree from Columbia Law School in 2001, where he was awarded the John Ordronaux Prize. He clerked for Judge Robert D. Sack of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (2001–02) and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States (2003–04). After clerking he worked as Associate Counsel and then Director of the Liberty and National Security Project of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. He has also been a Senior Consultant Analyst for the International Crisis Group.

His research and teaching interests include constitutional law, national security and counterterrorism, federal jurisdiction, legislation, human rights, and comparative constitutional law.
*This program is approved for one hour of Iowa and one hour of Federal CLE credit.

2011-2012 Lecturers

Constitution Day Speaker
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Professor David Cole, Georgetown University Law Center

This program is being held in honor of National Constitution Day, and to commemorate the tragic events of 9/11.

“Constitutional Rights Ten Years After 9/11: Has Everything Changed?”
3 pm, Drake Law School - Cartwright Hall, Room 213

David Cole teaches constitutional law, national security, and criminal justice at Georgetown University Law Center. He is the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, and a commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. He has been published widely including in the Yale Law Journal, California Law Review, Stanford Law Review, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times. He is the author of six books that have won many awards. These include The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable (2009); Less Safe, Less Free: Why America Is Losing the War on Terror (2007)(co-authored with Jules Lobel); Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism (2004); No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System (1999).

He has litigated constitutional cases in the Supreme Court, including Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman, which extended First Amendment protection to flag burning; National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, which challenged political content restrictions on NEA funding; and most recently, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, which challenged the constitutionality of the statute prohibiting “material support” to terrorist groups, which makes speech advocating peace and human rights a crime. He has been involved in many of the nation’s most important cases involving civil liberties and national security, including the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen rendered to Syria by U.S. officials and tortured there. Former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis has called Professor Cole “one of the country’s great legal voices for civil liberties today.”

*This program approved for one hour of Iowa and one hour Federal CLE credit.



Thursday, October 20, 2011
Professor Eric Posner, University of Chicago Law School

“The Executive Unbound: After the Madisonian Republic”
3 pm, Drake Law School - Cartwright Hall, Room 213

Eric Posner writes about contract law, international law, constitutional law, and administrative law. His books include The Executive Unbound: After the Madisonian Republic (with Adrian Vermeule) (Oxford, 2011); Climate Change Justice (with David Weisbach) (Princeton, 2010); The Perils of Global Legalism (University of Chicago, 2009); Terror in the Balance: Security, Liberty and the Courts (with Adrian Vermeule) (Oxford, 2007); New Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis (with Matthew Adler) (Harvard, 2006); The Limits of International Law (with Jack Goldsmith) (Oxford, 2005); Law and Social Norms (Harvard, 2000); Chicago Lectures in Law and Economics (editor) (Foundation, 2000); Cost-Benefit Analysis: Legal, Economic, and Philosophical Perspectives (editor, with Matthew Adler) (University of Chicago, 2001).

Professor Posner has taught courses on international law, foreign relations law, contracts, employment law, bankruptcy law, secured transactions, and game theory and the law. His latest research focuses on international law, immigration law, and foreign relations law. He is an editor of the Journal of Legal Studies and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition, he reviews books for The New Republic. Professor Posner is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School.

*This program approved for one hour of Iowa and one hour Federal CLE credit.

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Professor Pamela Karlan, Stanford Law School

“The Transformation of Judicial Restraint”
3 pm, Drake Law School - Cartwright Hall, Room 213

Pam Karlan is a Professor at Stanford Law School and co-director of the school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. The Clinic represents a wide variety of clients, including voters; workers raising claims under federal employment laws; criminal defendants; members of Congress; and nonprofit organizations such as the California Medical Association, the National School Boards Association, the National Women’s Law Center, and the California Correctional Peace Officers’ Association.

Professor Karlan received her B.A., M.A., and J.D. from Yale. She clerked for Judge Abraham D. Sofaer of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court. From 1986 to 1988, she served as assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where she specialized in voting rights and employment discrimination litigation. She remains a cooperating attorney with the Fund. From 2003 to 2005, she served on the California Fair Political Practices Commission.
 
Professor Karlan’s primary scholarly interests lie in the areas of constitutional law and litigation. She has published dozens of scholarly articles. She is the co-author of several leading casebooks, as well as a monograph on constitutional interpretation – Keeping Faith With The Constitution, published in 2010 by Oxford University Press. Karlan is an elected member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

*This program approved for one hour of Iowa CLE credit.