Constitution Day 2023
Overview
September 18 – 19, 2023
San Francisco State University has a proud tradition of organizing conferences for Constitution and Citizenship Day, a national holiday that commemorates the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787. The 2023 conference provides multiple opportunities to reflect critically on the past, present, and future of constitutional rights, freedoms, citizenship, democracy, equality, and justice. This year’s conference feature two keynote speakers, who will help us commemorate the 50th anniversary of San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973) and the 200thanniversary of Johnson v. M’Intosh (1823). Unless otherwise noted, all sessions will take place in Library 121.
The sponsors are the College of Liberal & Creative Arts, the History Department, the Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Chair in U.S. History, and the History Students Association.
Keynote Speakers
Rachel F. Moran
Rachel F. Moran will present “The Right to Education and the Road Not Taken.” Moran is Professor of Law at Texas A&M Univ. School of Law. Prior to that, she was Distinguished and Chancellor’s Professor of Law at UC Irvine School of Law, Michael J. Connell Distinguished Professor of Law and Dean Emerita at UCLA Law, and the Robert D. and Leslie-Kay Raven Professor of Law at Berkeley Law. She helped to found the UC Irvine law school in 2008. Moran has written over 100 articles and chapters exploring bilingual education, desegregation, affirmative action, and other topics. She is the author of Interracial Intimacy (U. Chicago Press, 2001), co-editor of Race Law Stories (Foundation, 2008), and co-author of Educational Policy and the Law (Cengage, 2011). As the inaugural Neukom Fellows Research Chair in Diversity and Law at the American Bar Foundation (ABF), she helped launch an initiative on "The Future of Latinos in the United States: Law, Opportunity, and Mobility." Moran is a member of the American Law Institute and the ABF, a member of the Board of Trustees for the Law and Society Association, and Past President of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS).
Kristen Carpenter
Kristen Carpenter will present “Indigenous Lands and Human Rights in the United States.” Carpenter is the Council Tree Professor of Law and Director of the American Indian Law Program at the Univ. of Colorado Law School. She served as chair and member of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from 2017 to 2021. With colleagues at the Native American Rights Fund, Carpenter serves as co-director of The Implementation Project, which advances the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples through education and advocacy. She also serves as a Justice of the Shawnee Tribe Supreme Court. The author of many academic articles and several books, her recent works include “‘Aspirations’ and Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights in the United States (Harvard Human Rights Journal, 2023); “Living the Sacred: Indigenous Peoples and Religious Freedom” (Harvard Law Review, 2021), and “Indigenous Peoples and Diplomacy on the World Stage” (American Journal of International Law, 2021). Carpenter is a co-author of Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law (7th ed., 2017). Carpenter has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School.
Schedule
Day 1 - Monday, September 18
Session 1: Making the Constitution Work
9:30 – 10:45 a.m., Library 121
Moderator: Daniel Bernardi (SF State School of Cinema)
- M. Ernita Joaquin (SF State Public Administration Program): “A Hole in the Constitution: The Right and the Wrongs of a Deconstructed Administrative State”
- Sheldon Gen (SF State Public Administration Program): “‘So I Swore to Uphold the Constitution--Now What?’: Public Service Careers in a Meaningful Life”
- Jennifer Shea (SF State Public Administration Program): “Navigating Essentially Contested Constitutional Values: A Role for Nonprofit Professionals?”
Session 2: Rewriting the Constitution
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m., Library 121
Moderator: Sue Englander (SF State History Department)
- Steve Harris (SF State History Department): Changing the Constitution: A Proposal to Start Anew
- Commentator: Nicholas D. Conway (SF State Political Science Department)
- Commentator: Rebecca M. Eissler (SF State Political Science Department)
Session 3: Reading and Responding to Dobbs
12:30 – 1:45 p.m., Library 121
Moderator: Amanda Michelle Roberti (SF State Political Science Department)
- Mark Leinauer (SF State Political Science Department): “What Remains after Dobbs? How Some Small Victories for Abortion Access Are Still Possible”
- Kurt Nutting (SF State Philosophy Department): “The Supreme Court’s Use of ‘Originalist’ Theories of Constitutional Interpretation in Dobbs”
Session 4: Academic Freedom at and beyond SF State
2 – 3:30 p.m., Library 121
Moderator: James Martel (SF State Political Science Department)
- Persis Karim (SF State Comparative and World Literature Department): “Inside, Outside, and All Around: Political Trends that Undermine Academic Freedom”
- Jeff Greensite (SF State Physics and Astronomy Department): “On the Right to Tell People What They Do Not Want to Hear”
- Maziar Behrooz (SF State History Department): “Academic Freedom: The Controversy over the Imaginary Portrait of Prophet Muhammad”
Session 5: Keynote Presentation by Rachel Moran - “The Right to Education and the Road Not Taken”
4 – 5:30 p.m., Library 121
Welcome: Dean Ifeoma Kiddoe Nwankwo, College of Liberal & Creative Arts
Biography: Moran is Professor of Law at Texas A&M University School of Law. Prior to that, she was Distinguished and Chancellor’s Professor of Law at UC Irvine School of Law, Michael J. Connell Distinguished Professor of Law and Dean Emerita at UCLA Law, and the Robert D. and Leslie-Kay Raven Professor of Law at Berkeley Law. She helped to found the law school at UC Irvine in 2008. Moran has written over 100 articles and chapters exploring bilingual education, desegregation, affirmative action, and other topics. She is the author of Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race and Romance (U. Chicago Press, 2001), co-editor of Race Law Stories (Foundation, 2008), and co-author of Educational Policy and the Law (Cengage, 2011). As the inaugural Neukom Fellows Research Chair in Diversity and Law at the American Bar Foundation (ABF), she helped launch an initiative on "The Future of Latinos in the United States: Law, Opportunity, and Mobility." Moran is a member of the American Law Institute and the ABF, a member of the Board of Trustees for the Law and Society Association, and Past President of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS).
Moderator: Marc Stein, SF State History Department
Day 2 - Tuesday, September 19
Session 6: Keynote Presentation by Kristen Carpenter – “Indigenous Lands and Human Rights in the United States”
9:15 – 10:45 a.m., Library 121
Welcome: Gregg Castro, t'rowt'raahl Salinan/rumsen & ramaytush Ohlone, Association of Ramaytush Ohlone Culture Director
Biography: Carpenter is the Council Tree Professor of Law and Director of the American Indian Law Program at the University of Colorado Law School. She served as chair and member of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) from 2017 to 2021. With colleagues at the Native American Rights Fund, Carpenter is now co-director of The Implementation Project, which advances the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples through education and advocacy. She also serves as a Justice of the Shawnee Tribe Supreme Court. The author of many academic articles and several books, she co-edited The Indian Civil Rights Act at Forty (UCLA American Indian Studies Center, 2012); co-edited Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law (Lexis, 2015 and 2017); and co-authored Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law (West, 2017). Carpenter has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and is an elected member of the American Law Institute. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School.
Moderator: Marc Stein, SF State History Department
Session 7: Left Politics and Constitutional Rights in the Mid-Twentieth Century
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m., Labor Archives and Research Center, Library 460
Moderator: Tanya Hollis (SF State Labor Archives and Research Center)
- Robert Cherny (SF State History Department, Emeritus), “San Francisco Communists v. the Supreme Court”
This session is cosponsored by the Labor Archives and Research Center.
Session 8: Transing Law
12:30 – 1:45p.m., Library 121
Moderator: Amy Sueyoshi (SF State Provost)
- Marc Stein (SF State History Department): “Cruel and Unusual Punishment for a Trans Sex Worker: Perkins v. North Carolina (1964)”
- Clare Sears: (SF State Sociology and Sexuality Studies Department): “Dress and Defiance: From Nineteenth Century Cross-Dressing Laws to Twenty-First Century Drag Show Bans”
- A. Ikaika Gleisberg: (SF State Sociology and Sexuality Studies Department): “Unsettling Trans Militarism: A Trans of Color Abolitionist Critique on the Limits of Inclusion”
Session 9: Anti-Blackness and the Law in the Making of Jim Crow Modernity
2 – 3:30 p.m., Library 121
Moderator: Robert Keith Collins (SF State American Indian Studies Department)
- Mario X. Burrus (University of California, Berkeley, History Department): “‘One Eighth African Blood’: From Plessy to Loving and the Legal Fallacies of Jim Crow Logic”
- Margot Lipin (University of California, Berkeley, Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program): “‘Bloody Phrases’: White Supremacy, Violence, and Liberalism in U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876)”
- Tara Madhav (University of California, Berkeley, History Department): “Criticisms of the Private/Public Distinction in Black Radical Thought”
Session 10: The Past, Present, and Future of Abortion Rights
4 – 5:30 p.m., Library 121
Moderator: Marc Stein (SF State History Department)
- Radhika Rao (University of California College of Law, San Francisco): “America’s Abortion Theocracy”
The sponsors are the College of Liberal & Creative Arts, the History Department, the Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Chair in U.S. History, and the History Students Association.
Accessibility
The Rights and Wrongs conference welcomes persons with disabilities and will provide reasonable accommodations upon request. SF State students, faculty and staff with disabilities who need reasonable accommodations are encouraged to contact the Disability Programs and Resource Center (DPRC), which is available to facilitate the reasonable accommodations process. The DPRC is located in the Student Service Building and can be reached by telephone (voice/(415) 338-2472, video phone/(415) 335-7210) or by email (dprc@sfsu.edu). Others who need reasonable accommodations for this event can contact Marc Stein at marcs@sfsu.edu as soon as possible so the request can be reviewed.
Acknowledgements
Grateful acknowledgement to Interim Dean Sophie Clavier and Dean Ifeoma Kiddoe Nwankwo for the support of the College of Liberal & Creative Arts; Laura Lisy-Wagner (Chair) for the support of the History Department; Alexis Cabrera for website management; Audrey Chuck for financial administration; Academic Technology for ilearn support; and Sana Hussaini for poster design. We also acknowledge with appreciation the Pasker/Pittman families for their generous support of the Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Chair, which supports historical and legal studies at San Francisco State University.
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