Through the Gale: A Podcast About Lawyering, Freedom, and Democracy

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Through the Gale: A Podcast About Lawyering, Freedom, and Democracy

A new podcast from Columbia Law School and the Center for Constitutional Governance, Through the Gale explores the role of lawyers in the struggle for multiracial democracy.

How are lawyers responding to the changes wrought by the racial uprisings of 2020, the pandemic, and January 6, 2021? On Through the Gale, a group of Columbia Law students talks to leading legal professionals and scholars to examine how lawyers are working to build a racially equitable society.

Listen to the most recent episode and learn more below.

Through the Gale is brought to you by Columbia Law School and the Center for Constitutional Governance.

About this Story

Trailer

Join Olatunde C. Johnson, Jerome B. Sherman Professor of Law, for a preview of Through the Gale.

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Introduction

Go “through the gale,” with co-hosts Olatunde Johnson, Jerome B. Sherman Professor of Law; Marica Wright ’22; Sneha Pandya ’21; and Dante Violette ’22 as they introduce the series.

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Civil Rights Lawyering in the Age of Abolition

Co-hosts Olatunde C. Johnson and Andre Estevez ’23 meet with Ashok Chandran ’15 (NAACP LDF), Alexis J. Hoag-Fordjour (Brooklyn Law School), and Theodore Shaw ’79 (UNC Center for Civil Rights) to discuss landmark civil rights cases and how civil rights lawyering has been reimagined in the context of current social movements.

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Can Big Law Be Anti-racist?

Professor Scott L. Cummings (UCLA) and Debo P. Adegbile (WilmerHale) join the hosts to address the role of Big Law in shaping a multiracial democracy. Are these legal institutions capable of genuine and effective anti-racist achievements, and what are the steps to getting there?

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Building Inclusive Law Schools

Columbia Law Professors Susan Sturm and Kendall Thomas along with Southwestern Law School Professor Meera Deo join the hosts to explore the role of hiring practices and pedagogy and curriculum development as part of evolving anti-racism efforts at law schools.

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Lawyering, Leadership, and Democracy—Public Service

The hosts speak with Amanda Litman (Run for Something) and Sam Spital (NAACP Legal Defense Fund) about public service, the aftermath of the 2020 election, and the roles that lawyers play in the democratic process.

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About the Hosts

Alexis Banks ’22 is an incoming associate at a New York Big Law firm. She is interested in the intersection of storytelling, social movements, and the law, with a particular interest in how mass media and popular culture serve as a frame and a reflection of our society and the way we understand history, race, politics, and social equality.

Man in dark suit and tie and white shirt

Andre Estevez ’23 is a rising 3L at Columbia Law School and is interested in race, civil rights, and criminal and social justice.

Adaeze Eze ’22 served as vice president of the National Security Law Society at Columbia Law, a staffer on the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, and a member of Columbia Law’s inaugural Public Interest/Public Service Fellows cohort. Her work involves questions of separation of powers and limits on presidential power.

Olatunde C. Johnson, Jerome B. Sherman Professor of Law, teaches and writes about inequality, civil rights, courts, American democracy, and strategies for social change.

Dark-haired woman in white turtleneck sweater

Sneha Pandya ’21 works in the U.S. Senate. She is interested in racial justice, economic justice, and climate justice in the financial regulatory space, administrative and constitutional governance, and constitutional history.

Dante Violette ’22 is a native of Detroit, Michigan, and graduated from Loyola University Chicago in 2015 with a B.S. in psychology. Continuing his studies at the University of Chicago, he earned a master’s degree in 2018 in Social Service and Administration focusing on global social development. At Columbia Law, Violette was a Public Interest/Public Service Fellow, a student member of Columbia Law School’s Anti-Racism Steering Committee, and a member of the Black Law Student Association.

Marica Wright ’22 was an active member of the Frederick Douglass Moot Court Team, Empowering Women of Color, and the Admissions Ambassadors during her time at Columbia Law, and she served as president of the Black Law Students Association. She is interested in racial justice, anti-racism in legal education, and anti-racism in the legal profession at large.