Kevin J. Hasson (left), founder, chairman of the Board, and president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and UF Law Professor Michael A. Wolf (right) discussed religious liberty last Wednesday.

Instead of separating church and state, Kevin J. Hasson argued that the state should endorse all forms of church.

Hasson spoke Wednesday with Professor Michael Wolf about religious freedom. The event was sponsored by the Federalist Society.

While Hasson said the establishment clause of the First Amendment should be weakened to allow more religion to be public, Wolf argued that it should be strengthened. Cities should not display Christmas trees or menorahs because it waters down religion, Wolf said.

“Is there any reason other than proselytizing for religious groups to want to erect these displays in public places?” Wolf said. “If so, I just don’t see it.”

Hasson replied: “Culture. Culture is the sum total of our manners, our arts, our holiday celebrations, our literature, and it’s inhuman to live without a culture… And it’s just as inhuman to say you can have a culture without a religion in it.”

Hasson is founder, chairman of the Board, and president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a bi-partisan, interfaith public interest law firm that protects the free expression of all religious traditions. The Beckett Fund employs five lawyers, and Hasson said in 15 years of existence, they have won 85 percent of their cases.

Hasson argued that religion should be looked at more like race and ethnicity. An example he gave was St. Patrick’s Day parades, which no one is offended by.

“With all respect, there is a major difference between an Englishman viewing a St. Paddy’s day parade and a 5-year-old child who is given a gold star for memorizing the 23rd Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer in a public school,” Wolf retorted. “I was that 5-year-old child; you understand where I’m coming from. There is a big difference between watching that parade and being rewarded for saying a prayer to a God that you don’t believe in.”

Hasson outlined his theory from his book, The Right To Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America. In it, he states there are two kinds of people that care about religion in society: pilgrims and park rangers.

Pilgrims don’t want any religious freedom at all; they want everyone to conform to their religion, Hasson said. Park Rangers don’t want any religion in public at all.

The term park ranger comes from a story Hasson told about a tea garden in San Francisco in 1989.

A public parking employee placed a parking barrier into the tea garden, and even though it was an eyesore, the city refused to remove it for four years, Hasson said.

Finally, a new age group claimed the parking barrier was a manifestation of the Hindu God Shiva and began to worship it, Hasson said.

The same bureaucrats who refused to remove the barrier before quickly had it removed to not let religion on public property, Hasson said.

While this may seem like an extreme example, Hasson gave more examples of what is happening around the country.

An Easter egg hunt is now called a “spring egg roll,” Halloween is sometimes called the “fall festival celebration,” and one school district in New Jersey has even gotten rid of Valentine’s Day.

“So now if you’re a 12-year-old boy with a crush on a 12-year-old girl, you have to impress her with something called a ‘special person card,’” Hasson said.

Wolf proposed his own test to see if something would pass First Amendment establishment clause muster.

“Was there an attempt to push the establishment clause envelope at the time the statute was erected, at the time the city was incorporated, at the time the motto was adopted, at the time the Pledge was written?” he said.

However, many lawmakers are trying to further religion today, Wolf said. He mentioned Ave Maria, a town in southwest Florida that was founded on Catholic principles.

“Ave Maria is a private college, a private university, but if the state of Florida wants to give its incorporation blessing to a new city called ‘Ave Maria’ or ‘Allah is great,’ the state gets an ‘F’ on my test,” Wolf said.

Hasson, however, thinks every religion should be entirely public and to some extent, sponsored by the state.

“The trick to getting around in a pluralistic culture is to realize that there is nothing that everyone is going to agree on,” Hasson said. “That’s why it’s pluralistic. The skill involved in that is to be able to sit respectfully and look at something that is pure drive by and smile respectfully when it goes by.”

Former president of the American Civil Liberties Union Nadine Strossen spoke to a classroom of students about civil rights last Tuesday. (UF Law/ Chen Wang)

Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, urged students to get involved in fighting for civil rights on Tuesday.

Strossen, brought to the UF Levin College of Law by the American Constitution Society, spoke to a crowd of about 50 in the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom.

Strosssen served as the president of the ACLU from 1991 until this October.

She spoke about a range of timely topics, including the presidential election and the amendments that passed that made gay marriage illegal in state constitutions.

Both Florida and California passed such amendments. Strossen, a law professor at New York Law School, said her students were shocked when the amendments passed.

“I saw that stunned and shocked reaction very positively, actually,” she said. “I think very soon we’re going to be entering a generational change. ‘It’s inconceivable; how could you possibly discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation? How could you possibly deny marriage equality on the bases of sexual orientation?’ is the attitude my students have.”

The ACLU has already challenged the passing of the amendment, proposition 8, in California. Strossen said that there is case law that says any constitutional amendment that deals with human rights has to be passed by the state legislature, which this proposition was not, before it can be placed on the ballot.

Still, Strossen thinks homosexuals will one day have the same marriage rights as others.

“Not at all to say it’s not a severe setback, but if you put it in historic perspective, it’s just a blip,” Strossen said. “We’re going to get there, and we’re going to get there so much more quickly than would’ve been imaginable when I was a law student.”

Strossen also spoke about a high-profile, close-to-home case that the ACLU recently won. In Ponce de Leon, Florida, in the panhandle, Heather Gillman was told she could not wear a shirt with a rainbow on it to symbolize gay pride.

“The school was tolerating every other kind of t-shirt, including Ku Klux Klan t-shirts,” Strossen said. “And by the way, the ACLU would defend the right to have that message as well. You counter speech that you don’t like not with suppression but with counter speech.”

The principal of the high school refused to settle the case. When the judge in the case was baffled as to why Gillman could not wear the shirt, the principal explained that it was disruptive. The judge asked why it was disruptive.

“The principal said, ‘Because it makes students think about sex,’” Strossen said. “Right, as if they’re not thinking about sex every minute of every day anyway.”

Since then, Gillman has gotten more involved in civil rights issues. Before the lawsuit, Gillman was not planning on attending college.

“This is why our clients are so inspiring to me,” Strossen said. “For all of us as lawyers, we have a professional responsibility, we have professional knowledge, we’ve got a degree, we’ve got our license. It’s one thing for us to advocate for civil liberties, but for somebody else who is not educated in it, who makes herself a pariah in her community, who in this case is bucking the administration, the principal and peer pressure, hats off. Those are my heroes and heroines.”

The ACLU has prepared a list of civil rights issues for president-elect Barack Obama to consider when he takes office, Strossen said. But she warned that Obama won’t fix all the problems with civil rights over night.

“Civil liberties violations as well as civil liberties support crosses every ideological spectrum,” Strossen said. “I think it’s very important for us to realize that a change in presidential administration is not necessarily going to change some of the violations that have been put in place over the last eight years.”

Strossen emphasized that the ACLU is a non-partisan organization and that both sides have been bad on civil rights issues in recent history. She brought up the USA PATRIOT Act and FISA, which allowed warrantless wiretapping, as examples.

Only one member of the U.S. Senate, Senator Russ Feingold, voted against the PATRIOT Act.

But Strossen realizes that the ACLU and politicians have different goals. She understands that the economy is much more important to most Americans than civil rights issues.

“I think we have to be realistic about what can be accomplished and how quickly it can be accomplished, especially at a time when there are so many more urgent priorities for most people,” she said.

Strossen took questions after speaking, and one student asked if lawyers should take the gay marriage battle to the United States Supreme Court. Strossen said lawyers who work on gay rights issues are staying away from this battleground.

“If you go there, yes you have a chance that in one fell swoop they’ll grant marriage equality and fairness to everybody,” she said. “But you also have the chance that the opposite will happen, and it’s much harder to overturn bad precedent than to wait a while and see if things improve.”

Strossen used Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas (which struck down a sodomy law) to argue that the rights granted in the Constitution are much broader than the specifically enumerated ones.

“He said if those who wrote our Constitution had an idea on a fixed concept of fundamental rights, they could’ve said that,” Strossen said. “They had the linguistic ability to do that. Instead, when they choose an open-ended phrase such as due process of law and equal protection of the law, they were making a deliberate choice.”

Despite the gay marriage amendments passing, the ACLU and other groups will fight until all citizens have equal rights, Strossen said.

“Yes it was a setback, but it was only a temporary setback. Activists never take no for an answer; we never stop,” Strossen said.

President of the Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division, Jewel White Cole (JD 95) uses her experience and success to help law students and young lawyers learn how to establish themselves within the legal community.

The one word that Jewel White Cole (JD 95) uses to describe herself is “dynamic”—characterized by energy or effective action. It seems that there could be no more fitting a description for a woman who has launched such an impressively fast-paced, ever-evolving career.

Since graduating from the College of Law, Cole has held the titles of assistant Pinellas County attorney, president of the Clearwater Bar, and is now the president of the Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division and managing assistant Pinellas County attorney.

As president of the Young Lawyers Division, Cole is able to use her experience and success to help law students and young lawyers learn how to establish themselves within the legal community.

On Oct. 22, Cole and 5th Circuit Board of Governors Young Lawyers Division Representative Reneé Thompson conducted an informational session at the UF law school explaining the role of the division and emphasizing the importance of networking in the legal field.

During her presentation, Cole spoke with enthusiasm and conviction to a room full of law students of the importance of getting involved and networking within the legal field, as well as the recent establishment of a law student division of the Young Lawyers Division.

Surprisingly, Cole admitted that as a law student, she was only minimally involved in law school-related activities and instead preferred tutoring for the UF Athletic Association and working as a sociology research assistant.

Originally from Ft. Myers, Cole attended UF to earn her bachelor’s in sociology, then continued to law school for her J.D. while also earning her master’s in urban planning. Her involvement with voluntary bar activities began when a friend from law school insisted that she attend a Clearwater Bar Association Young Lawyers Division meeting and she “begrudgingly” followed.

Ever since, Cole has been involved in the division in one way or another, from serving as president of the Clearwater Bar Young Lawyers Division to her current role as president of the Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division.

As managing assistant Pinellas County attorney, Cole manages environmental, land use, and public safety law as well as environmental enforcement and public financing deals, in addition to a staff of five attorneys, two secretaries, and one paralegal.

Cole also describes herself as lucky. “I always took advantage of opportunities that presented themselves to me,” Cole explains as the key to her success.

Undoubtedly, Cole’s success was also boosted by her habit of being overly prepared as a young attorney, a strategy that she developed as a means of shattering any preconceptions that her colleagues may have had about her because of her young age. Her chief advice to current law students and young lawyers is to be overly prepared and to seize opportunities that present themselves.

Cole is also a believer in lawyer’s karma, explaining “if you put good stuff out there, it comes back.”

While she has not yet decided the precise track that her future will follow, Cole is confident that when her year-long term as the Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division president has ended, she will continue her involvement with the organization and will also continue to serve on the Executive Council for City Council and Local Bar section of the Florida Bar.

For more information on The Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division, visit www.flayld.org.

“She inspired us. In her life and her death she brought us together,” close friend Donna Vincent said. “And I know she lives on through us. Remembering her is honoring her, and we will never forget.”

Also, Randy Gold honored his son Eric Gold, a class of 2009 law student, who passed away on Jan. 20 this year. Last year Randy Gold participated in the “Hustle Up the Hancock” in Chicago, climbing all 94 flights of the Hancock Building. Eric Gold had participated in 2005-2007. This is a fundraiser for the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, a group dedicated to raising money for respiratory disease research and treatment. He will participate again on Feb. 25, 2009. For anyone interested in more information or donating to this cause, visit Randy Gold’s personal fundraising Web site.

The Lawton Chiles Legal Information Center and surrounding buildings were certified "green" by the USGBC Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System.

It’s green under the bricks and mortar of the Lawton Chiles Legal Information Center (LIC). The new addition and renovations to the LIC, classrooms and law library were recently certified as a “green” building by the U.S. Green Building Council. The certification is part of the USGBC Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System.

“This designation is an example of the commitment the University of Florida and the Levin College of Law has to reduce its environmental footprint,” said Robert Jerry, dean and a Levin, Mabie and Levin professor of law. “Not only did we gain and enhance classroom space, we also made energy improvements. As a result, we have provided our current and future students, faculty and staff with a comfortable and sustainable environment.”

The LEED system promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in six key areas of human and environmental health including: site planning; water management; energy management; material use; indoor air quality; and innovation and design.

“Green building construction is an integrated design that is environmentally responsible, profitable in the long term and creates a healthy place to live and work,” said Bahar Armaghani, assistant director at UF’s Facilities Planning & Construction. “This high performance building construction helps to alleviate our carbon footprint caused by making everyday decisions that increase greenhouse gas emissions.”

Part of the efforts that helped UF earn the green rating included redirecting 12,900 tons of construction waste and debris from landfills to be recycled, shade placement, installing water-efficient landscaping and bathroom fixtures, energy efficient lighting systems and using low volatile organic compound carpets, sealants and paints.

The $25 million LIC project completed in 2005 includes two three-story classroom towers between and connecting Holland and Bruton-Geer Halls adding 1,300 new seats. It also includes 87,000 square feet of renovated or new LIC space, and enhanced outdoor spaces.

The building design team working with UF Facilities Planning & Construction consisted of Gainesville architectural firm Ponikvar & Associates and Boston architectural firm Tsoi/Kobus & Associates.