Columbia Law School Experts Available for Comment on Remainder of Supreme Court Docket

 

NEW YORK, June 15, 2009 – As the U.S. Supreme Court concludes it session on Monday, opinions in three important cases will be handed down. Columbia Law School legal scholars and experts can comment on these cases, including:

 

Ricci V. DeStefano (07-1428 and 08-328) is an appeal by white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who contend they were victims of racial discrimination when they were denied promotions. The court heard arguments on the case in April.
 

Susan Sturm is a founding co-director of the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia. She is a founding member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Diversity at Columbia University. She has developed a website with Lani Guinier, www.racetalks.org, on building multiracial learning communities. In 2007, she received the Presidential Teaching Award for Outstanding Teaching at Columbia.

Patricia Williams has published widely in the areas of race, gender, and law, and on other issues of legal theory and legal writing. Books include The Alchemy of Race and Rights; The Rooster's Egg; and Seeing a ColorBlind Future: The Paradox of Race. Williams is also a columnist for The Nation.

Jamal Greene focuses primarily on the political construction of constitutional law in his scholarship. He clerked for the Hon. Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New Haven, for the 2005-06 term. He followed that by clerking for Justice John Paul Stevens at the U.S. Supreme Court during the 2006-07 term.

 

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (08-205) concerns how far the Federal Elections Commission may go to regulate what advocacy groups can say during national election campaigns.

Richard Briffault is one of the nation’s leading experts on election law and campaign finance. Among his many duties, he has served on the New York City Real Property Tax Reform Commission; been a consultant to the New York State Commission on Constitutional Revision; and Executive director, Special Commission on Campaign Finance Reform of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

Cuomo v. Clearing House Association (08-453) concerns whether New York and other states are able to investigate potential racial discrimination in the lending practices of national banks and their affiliates. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the power to investigate such activities is the exclusive responsibility of the federal government, or whether state officials can also stop discriminatory lending. The court heard arguments on the case in April.

James E. Tierney is the director of the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School, where he has also taught as a lecturer-in-law since the fall of 2000. Tierney served as the attorney general of Maine from 1980 until 1990. He is currently a consultant to attorneys general and others.
 

Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, stands at the forefront of legal education and of the law in a global society. Columbia Law School joins traditional strengths in international and comparative law, constitutional law, administrative law, business law and human rights law with pioneering work in the areas of intellectual property, digital technology, sexuality and gender, criminal, and environmental law.

 

Visit us at www.law.columbia.edu.