Events

Equality Besieged: A Critical Analysis of Supreme Court Jurisprudence
California Law Review Symposium
Friday, March 1, 2024
9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Room 100, Berkeley Law
If you cannot attend in person, please click the link below to join on Zoom:
https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/91975224880(opens in a new tab)

At the same time, the Court has “weaponized” the First Amendment to confer novel rights on conservative Christians. For example, in 303 Creative v. Elenis, the Court held that a web designer who opposes same-sex marriage has a First Amendment right to violate state antidiscrimination laws. Some Justices, in particular Justice Alito, have gone so far as to suggest that religious conservatives are the new minorities in need of judicial protection.

These rulings, rhetoric, and the reshaping of doctrine they effect constitute an attack on the laws and principles that have powered progress, however halting and incomplete, toward greater equality of opportunity for people who are members of historically marginalized communities. The conservative Justices have adopted formalistic and ahistorical reasoning in their opinions, and they have often displayed a disregard for the lived experiences of real people (unless they are conservative Christians). Although the opinions of the conservative Justices are at times brazen, their doctrinal moves are often complex and subtle and demand careful analysis. Progressive scholars must closely examine these opinions and develop the critiques, principles, and perspectives that will inform today’s dissents and enable tomorrow’s Justices to revive the Court’s commitment to equality. To advance the rights of subordinated people, progressive lawyers and scholars need a movement comparable in scope and ambition to that undertaken by conservative scholars and lawyers since the 1970s to undo liberal victories achieved during the era of the Warren Court.

We will convene under the auspices of the California Law Review scholars and advocates who have studied, analyzed, and theorized how doctrine and policy may dismantle or reinforce inequality along lines of race, class, sex/gender, sexuality, religion, and disability.

Agenda 
Introduction from Professor Jonathan Glater
Welcome from California Law Review

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky & Professor Khiara M. Bridges: these scholars’ expertise in equality, the First Amendment, policing, and reproductive justice positions them to provide an insightful overview of the Court’s docket as well as related issues percolating in the lower courts.

II. Panel 1: Equality in Context, 10:15  – 11:45 am

This panel will provide the historical context for recent Supreme Court decisions as well as examine how movements are responding to doctrinal developments, such as organizing in the aftermath of Dobbs. 

• Kathryn Abrams

• Jennifer Chacón

• Jerry Kang
• Dylan Penningroth
• Ian Haney López, moderator
  
  

  III. Lunch Keynote Conversation: The State of Racial Equality at the Supreme Court; 12:30-1:45 pm 

This conversation, which will be moderated by Russell K. Robinson, will bring together two leading Critical Race theorists, Cheryl I. Harris and Devon W. Carbado. The conversation will engage the law concerning race-conscious admissions processes, policing and race, and the pattern of state laws that attack Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and the rights of LGBTQ people, especially transgender children and adults. Harris and Carbado co-wrote The New Racial Preferences, a visionary Cal. L. Rev. critique of “colorblind” admissions, which is even more relevant after the Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions. Robinson wrote Unequal Protection, which considers similarities and differences between the Court’s treatment of equality claims by people of color, women, and LGBTQ people.

IV. Panel 2: Identities & Intersectionality, 2:00-3:30 pm

This panel will take up intersections between the Court’s treatment of rights in diverse contexts, such as privacy, equality, criminal law, and Native American law.  Panelists will juxtapose doctrinal developments that are sometimes studied separately in search of new insights. Speakers will seek to identify trends that cut across different cases to excavate the Court’s broader agenda. Further, with respect to the affirmative action cases in particular, this panel will provide an opportunity to engage the equality interests of African-Americans, AAPI people, Indigenous people, and White people, among other groups.

• Monica Bell

• Seth Davis

• Cary Franklin

• Vinay Harpalani

• Jamelia Morgan

• Leti Volpp, moderator

V. Panel 3: Competing Interests: Equality and the First Amendment; 3:45-5:15 pm 

This panel will examine how the Court has increasingly adopted novel constructions of rights of free speech and free exercise that privilege corporations and conservative Christians – but not members of religious minority groups, such as Muslims – and marginalize women, people of color, and LGBTQ people. Panelists will grapple with the question of how can religious liberty be re-imagined so that vulnerable religious minorities receive as much protection as Christians? What would an anti-subordination interpretation of the First Amendment look like? 

• Katherine Franke

• Genevieve Lakier
• Chan Tov McNamarah
• Brian Souccek
• Jonathan Glater, moderator

VI. Closing Remarks, 5:15-5:30 pm
Russell K. Robinson

Keynote addresses by:

Cheryl Harris
Vice Dean for Community, Equality and Justice
Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Professor in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
UCLA Law

Devon W. Carbado
Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law
UCLA Law

Erwin Chemerinsky
Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law
Berkeley Law

Khiara M. Bridges
Professor of Law 
Berkeley Law 

Moderators and Speakers:

Kathryn Abrams
Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Professor in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Berkeley Law

Monica C. Bell
Professor of Law, Associate Professor of Sociology, and Counselor to the Dean
Yale Law School

Jennifer M. Chacón
Bruce Tyson Mitchell Professor of Law
Stanford Law School

Katherine M. Franke
James L. Dohr Professor of Law
Columbia Law School

Cary Franklin
McDonald/Wright Chair of Law
Faculty Director of the Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy & Faculty Director of the Williams Institute
UCLA Law

Jonathan D. Glater
Associate Dean, J.D. Curriculum and Teaching
Faculty Director of the Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice
Berkeley Law

Ian Haney López
Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Public Law
Berkeley Law

Vinay Harpalani
Don L. & Mabel F. Dickason Endowed Chair in Law
The University of New Mexico School of Law

Jerry Kang
Distinguished Professor of Law
Distinguished Professor of Asian American Studies (by courtesy)
UCLA Law

Genevieve Lakier
Professor of Law, Herbert and Marjorie Fried Teaching Scholar
The University of Chicago Law School

Chan Tov McNamarah
Visiting Assistant Professor
Cornell Law School

Jamelia Morgan
Professor of Law
Director, Center for Racial and Disability Justice
Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

Dylan C. Penningroth
Professor of Law
Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of History
Associate Dean, Program in Jurisprudence and Social Policy / Legal Studies
Berkeley Law

Russell Robinson
Walter Perry Johnson Professor of Law
Faculty Director, Center on Race, Sexuality & Culture
Berkeley Law

Brian Souccek
Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Fellow
UC Davis School of Law

Leti Volpp
Robert D. and Leslie Kay Raven Professor of Law in Access to Justice
Berkeley Law

Sponsored by:
California Law Review(opens in a new tab)
Center on Race, Sexuality & Culture

Co-Sponsored by:
Center for Race & Gender

Zoom Webinar – Click here to register

What is Critical Race Theory and why is it the sudden target of fierce right-wing attacks?