From the archives: Lani Guinier @ Yale

Date: 10/31/2003
Title: Out of the Grutter and into the Mainstream- Adversity to Diversity (1:11:08)
Speaker: Lani Guinier
Location: Yale Law School
Presentation type: Streaming video (Real Player)

From the announcement:

Lani Guinier will use the recent Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action in higher education admissions, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, as the beginning of a deeper consideration of the social responsibilities of universities.

Admissions decisions at elite universities are critical to the constitution of the institution, but they also “have a special political impact: rationing access to societal influence and power, and training leaders for public office and public life,” she writes in a forthcoming paper in the Harvard Law Review.

Much of the debate in recent years over admissions decisions has centered on the issues of race and affirmative action. The Grutter decision affirmed the use of race in admissions and the importance of diversity in higher education. Guinier argues, “And because it embraces democratic legitimacy as a justification for diversity, the opinion also offers a long-overdue opportunity to refocus the conversation on the distributive and functional role of higher education in a democracy.”

She continues, “Used as a lens to peer beyond the pretense of the debate, race helps detect the deeper issues confronting public institutions of higher education.” Guinier says that the measures of merit currently used in the admissions process, such as test scores and school rankings, “have failed to allocate scarce educational opportunities in a manner that is consistent with democratic values.” She suggests that examining the underlying inequalities in the admissions process could create “opportunities for grassroots coalitions that include both people of color and poor and working-class whites, and that unite urban and rural constituencies.”

From the archives: Armey @ Illinois

Date: 10/24/2003
Title: The Instrumental Value of Sloppy Work in Making Legislation
Speaker: Dick Armey
Location: University of Illinois
Presentation type: Streaming video (Real Player)

The Ira M. Belfer Lecture: In Defense of the “Old” Public Health

Date: 10/23/2003
Title: The Ira M. Belfer Lecture: In Defense of the “Old” Public Health
Speaker(s): Richard A. Epstein
Location: Brooklyn Law School
Presentation type: Streaming video (Real Player)

From the announcement:

On Thursday, October 23, University of Chicago Law Professor Richard A. Epstein presented the Ira M. Belfer lecture, “In Defense of the “Old” Public Health,” in which he addressed the question of what should fall under the aegis of “public” health. His talk focused on the “old” public health law and policies of the 19th and early 20th centuries, which were narrowly focused on preventing and treating communicable diseases. Current trends are much broader in scope, with ever increasing government regulation and intervention, which may result in unintended consequences of limited individual freedoms and choice in health care.

From the archives: Robert Post’s Boies Chair Inaugural Lecture

Date: 11/20/2003
Title: Fashioning the Legal Constitution: Culture, Courts and the Law (1:27:17)
Speaker: Robert Post
Location: Yale Law School
Presentation type: Streaming video (Real Player)

Internet Copyright Wars

Date: 10/14/2003
Title: Internet Copyright Wars
Speaker(s): Edward Lee, Sheldon Halpern, Peter Swire, Douglas Berman
Location: Ohio State
Presentation type: Streaming video (Real Player)

From the announcement:

Swire, an expert on Internet privacy and former Chief Counselor for Privacy for the Clinton Administration, said the issue of music sharing has become a hot topic in recent months. “The filing last month of hundreds of lawsuits by the recording industry against music ‘sharers’ is the latest round in a heated battle between the owners of music and movies and those whom the industry considers ‘pirates,’” he noted. “Millions of users, meanwhile, have used KaZaa and other peer-to-peer programs to download songs and other content over the Internet. Users complain about high CD prices and the lack of official industry Internet offerings that match what they want. The industry complains that it is impossible to ‘compete against free,’ and has sought to use the legal system in new ways to reduce unauthorized downloads.”

As part of the panel, the four professors, all experts in various aspects of intellectual property law, will explain the legal and technological issues surrounding the recording industry’s ongoing effort to curb music sharing. They also will try to point the way to a more peaceful outcome for these copyright wars.

Professor Halpern, C. William O’Neill Professor of Law and Judicial Administration, will look at the economics of the music industry, where he notes, “sharing is theft.” Professor Swire will talk about the current legal battles on downloading, and Professor Berman will share his “comments from an Intellectual Property observer.” A question and answer session will conclude the discussion, which is presented by the Moritz College’s Cyber, Intellectual Property, Technology and Entertainment Law Society.

Since 1891, the Moritz College of Law has played a leading role in the legal profession through countless contributions made by alumni and faculty. Graduates of the school reside in all 50 states and 20 other countries and include justices of the Ohio Supreme Court, current and former U.S. Senators and Representatives, managing partners in law firms of all sizes, chief executive officers of Fortune 500 corporations, and attorneys with non-profit organizations and public interest law firms.

Storrs Lectures Fall, 2003

Date: 10/7/2003 – 10/9/2003
Title: Storrs Lectures 2003

• Civil Constitutions in Global Society: Alternative to State-Centered Constitutional Theory (1:26:04)
• Coincidentia oppositorum: Hybrid Networks Beyond Contract and Organization (1:31:44)
• Dealing with Paradoxes of Law: Derrida, Luhmann, Wietholter (1:16:28)

Speaker: Gunther Teubner
Location: Yale Law School
Presentation type: Streaming video (Real Player)

From the announcement:

Gunther Teubner, professor of private law and legal sociology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt, will deliver the 2003-04 Storrs Lectures at Yale Law School on October 7, 8, and 9. His first lecture is titled “Civil Constitutions in Global Society: Alternative to State-Centered Constitutional Theory,” and will be held in Room 127 on Tuesday, October 7, 4:30 p.m. The second lecture, “Coincidentia Oppositorum: Hybrid Networks Beyond Contract and Organization,” will be in Room 127, on Wednesday, October 8, at 4:30 p.m. The final lecture, “Dealing with Paradoxes of Law: Derrida, Luhmann, Wietholter,” will be in the Faculty Lounge, Thursday, October 9 at 12:30 p.m.

Gunther Teubner’s three apparently divergent talks are united around the theme of paradox in the law, or as he phrases it ” the movement of paradoxification and deparadoxification of legal distinctions.”

Teubner’s first lecture, “Civil Constitutions in Global Society: Alternative to State-Centered Constitutional Theory,” will examine the notion of civil constitutions, or constitutions that govern social sectors–such as the economy, research, or health care–instead of a nation. “The idea is that in the process of globalization, these civil constitutions play a much more important role than they played under the regime of the nation states.” Teubner will discuss features of civil constitutions that are both similar to and different from political constitutions.

In his second lecture, “Coincidentia Oppositorum: Hybrid Networks Beyond Contract and Organization,” Teubner will take up hybrid networks, which are “private arrangements that are not identical with contracts and neither are they identical with associations, rather they are something in between or beyond market and hierarchy.” He mentions virtual enterprises, franchise chains, and just-in-time networks as examples of hybrid networks. He adds that many hybrid networks have come about due to technological innovations and the growing prevalence of knowledge-based production in recent years. “Hybrid networks require on the one side a profound cooperation, on the other side tough competition; this is the reason why these new private arrangements are developing more and more.”

The third lecture, “Dealing with Paradoxes of Law: Derrida, Luhmann, Wietholter,” will turn more directly to the idea of paradox in the law, particularly in the context of civil constitutions and hybrid networks. Teubner will suggest a change in the mode of thought, from conflict to paradox. He explains that “conflicts are contradictions between A and non-A, while paradoxes . . . have the structure non-A because A.” He points out that constitutions are always paradoxical in their foundation, because they are formed in a self-referential mode. “They have a foundationless foundation, or a similar paradoxical formulation. . . . And this is true in a similar way for the civil constitutions, although they are based on different mechanisms.”

If you’re looking for a further explication of the concept of legal paradox, Teubner responds, “This will happen in the lecture.”

Richard Epstein @ Duke

Date: 10/2/2003
Title: Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism
Speaker: Richard Epstein
Location: Duke
Presentation type: Streaming video (Real Player)

From the archives: Colin Driver @ Illinois (Baum)

Date: 10/2/2003
Title: From Equality to Diversity: The Detour from Brown to Grutter
Speaker: Colin S. Driver
Location: University of Illinois
Presentation type(s): Streaming video (Real Player)