According to court documents, Ricci v. DeStefano presented recurring issues regarding proper application of Title VII and the Equal Protection Clause to the civil service. The petitioners were 17 white and one Hispanic New Haven firefighters and lieutenants who qualified for promotion to command positions pursuant to job related examinations and merit selection rules mandated by local law. Citing the race of the successful candidates and Title VII’s “disparate impact” provision, city officials refused to promote the petitioners. In his lecture, Chang will explore the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in favor of the petitioners and a tension that exists between the opinions, with regard to the appropriate temporal framework to consider in evaluating the actions of the City of New Haven.

“During my presentation, I will argue that Justice Kennedy’s opinion and Justice Alito’s concurring opinion share a narrow temporal framework that considers only the immediate interests of disappointed firefighters,” Chang said. “Justice Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion identifies the importance of context and discusses the decades-long struggle to address discrimination within the New Haven Fire Department. I will demonstrate that the way the court sets up the conflict between disparate impact and disparate treatment in the Title VII context and how Justice Kennedy’s resolution of this tension is ultimately unsatisfactory.”

Robert S. Chang joined the Seattle University School of Law from Loyola Law School, where he was professor of law and J. Rex Dibble Fellow. Most recently, he served as the Sturm Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. In 2009, Chang was the recipient of the Clyde Ferguson Award given by the Minority Groups Section of the Association of American Law Schools. He began his teaching career in 1992 as a legal writing instructor at the University of Puget Sound School of Law. A graduate of Princeton and Duke Universities, he writes primarily in the area of race and interethnic relations.

“I’m honored to be delivering the spring lecture for the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations,” Chang said. “I was among a group of scholars who spoke at the center’s inaugural conference in 1998. I’ve watched the center grow and develop under the leadership of Professor Russell Brown. In addition to the opportunity to present my ideas, I’m looking forward to talking with the leadership at the center about how we might develop a partnership with the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle University School of Law.”

Past speakers in the series of Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations Spring Lectures include Paul Butler, George Washington University School of Law, Paul Finkelman, University of Tulsa College of Law, Shelia Foster, Fordham University School of Law, Ian Handy Lopez, UC Berkley School of Law, the Hon. Judge Stephan P. Mickle, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, and Sherrilyn Ifill, University of Maryland School of Law.

The Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations is committed to de-stigmatizing race in America. With the objective of fostering communities of dialogue, the center embraces historically and empirically based thinking, talking, teaching and writing on race. To this end, the center creates and supports programs designed to enhance race-related curriculum development for faculty, staff and students in collegiate and professional schools. Of the five U.S. law schools with race centers, the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations is uniquely focused on curriculum development.

Florida Moot Court advances to quarter-finals in Charleston Moot Court Competition

Have your taxes prepared by VITA
Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) is a free tax service that prepares returns for low to moderate income clients. All of our volunteers are certified through the IRS and are well-equipped to handle your specific tax issues. The law school is the home of a VITA site that operates on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 5-9 p.m. The law school is located on the corner of SW 2nd Ave. and 25th St. The volunteers operate in the organization’s office across from the cafeteria on the law school campus. The volunteers prepare both domestic and international returns Feb. 2 – April 8, 2010. If your family made less than $49,000 in income in 2009, you should qualify for free tax services. VITA strongly encourage students, faculty, and staff to support its efforts in preparing returns so please spread the word. Why pay all that money to get your taxes prepared when you can have an expert maximize your refund for free! For questions, contact Kimberly Thomas.

Tyger elected as Unite president
Third-year law student James Tyger has been selected to serve as the party president for the Unite Party in the upcoming Student Government Elections. “It is a distinct honor and a unique challenge, but it’s one that I wholeheartedly look forward to,” Tyger said. Prior to his selection as Party President, Tyger had served as Student Body President at Virginia Tech and more recently as the Student Senator representing the College of Law. “I have been privileged to serve in a variety of roles within Student Government and I believe my background will really help in this new role,” he said. Student Government Elections will take place Feb. 23. and 24.

• Presented “How to Get What You Want: Embracing the Art of Negotiation in Your Personal and Professional Life,” at the American Bar Association Midyear Meeting, Orlando, Fla., Feb. 5.

“At least in my view, the debate in this country on the left, loosely speaking, over the issue of same-sex marriage is over,” said Carpenter, Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law University of Minnesota Law School. “It has been resolved in favor of full legal recognition of same-sex couples and there is some remaining debate over what to call it, what form it should take and so forth. The basic principle has been embraced. The interesting discussion on this issue in the country right now is happening in the middle and especially on the right.”

Carpenter described Burkean conservatism in a nutshell as respecting tradition and history, distrusting abstract theorizing about the world and opposing convulsive change in favor of slow, well-sustained progress. Carpenter said it would be easy to argue against same-sex marriage from a Burkean perspective.

First of all, it would be a change and a Burkean conservative would be suspicious of that alone. Second, marriage has never included same-sex unions in its definition. Third, proponents are using abstract reasons – tolerance, inclusion and equality – to argue for same-sex marriages that do not address the real issue. Finally, a Burkean conservative would argue that these changes are being thrust upon us by impatient activists and courts that have no respect for tradition.

To refute these arguments, Carpenter said many of the laws that apply to homosexuals were made without knowing much about them. Many myths were cast upon homosexuals including that they were dangerous, predatory toward children, psychopathic, maladjusted and sick, Carpenter said.

“Much public policy in this country toward homosexuals was developed in a time when we didn’t know much about gays and lesbians as a group – how they lived, what they were like, how many there were and so on,” Carpenter said. “So in the absence of this information, we filled in with some myths and stereotypes about homosexuals, some things we believed to be true.”

How America views homosexuals is greatly changing, as evidenced by decriminalization of sodomy laws and demedicalization of being homosexual, Carpenter said. Carpenter conservatively estimated about 9 million homosexuals and 750,000 same-sex couples living together.

“When you think about it, it’s a lot of people who will never have the prospect of marriage in their lives, who are cut off from what a traditionalist would regard as the most important social institution we have for encouraging people to live in stable healthy family and community lives, the most moral life possible, according to a traditionalist, for a sexually active person,” Carpenter said. “It denies to them, to this group of people, the most powerful social and legal institution we have for encouraging the kinds of values that traditionalists say are the most important values in life.”

Carpenter said there would be three types of individual benefits that homosexuals would get from being allowed to marry: legal benefits, care giving benefits and social benefits. Carpenter thinks the legal benefits might be the least important of the three rights. He said social benefits might be the most important reason for letting homosexuals marry.

“It is the way that one person signals to another person in a relationship the depth of the commitment they have to that relationship and moreover it’s the way that that couple signals the importance and the depth and the enduring nature of their commitment to those in their communities – to their friends, to their co-workers, to their families, to everyone else they know,” he said.

Further, Carpenter said every study done has said that children do just as well with homosexual parents. Although many would argue that a married man and woman is the optimal environment for children, Carpenter said they’re missing the point.

“The reason we would say that is that no one seriously involved in this debate over whether we’re going to recognize same-sex marriage or not advocates taking children out of the homes of their gay and lesbian parents, more than a million now,” Carpenter said. “So here’s the choice: it’s not, ‘Are gays the best for raising children or not?’ The choice is, ‘Will the children who are being raised in increasing numbers by gay and lesbian parents – will they be raised in homes where their families enjoy the protections and benefits of marriage or will they not be?’ That’s the real question.”

In addition to individual benefits, Carpenter said the community would reap benefits from allowing same-sex marriage too. Carpenter does not buy that marriage is for procreation only since we allow those who cannot reproduce or do not want children to marry. Carpenter gave four ways that same-sex marriage would benefit the community.

First of all, it would better the lot for gays and lesbians. Second, it would help limit government since married people place fewer demands on the government. Third, it would benefit gay life and culture and help discourage promiscuity, drug use and alcoholism. Finally, there are so many problems with marriage in America right now – divorce, children born out of wedlock, little cultural respect – that it might actually help the institution.

“Instead of being a threat to marriage, imagine that gay marriage might actually be a small part of its revival, of its reinstitutionalization,” Carpenter said. “Think about it this way: it is harder to convince people that marriage really is the gold standard for relationships, that marriage and raising children go together, if a large subclass of the population is living life entirely outside of this institution.”

Michael Allan Wolf

On Friday, local and national experts gathered at the UF Hilton for the Richard E. Nelson Symposium, with this year’s event titled, “Local Government Liability Under Federal Law: Regulating the Sacred and the Profane.” Dean Robert Jerry began the event by expressing his appreciation for the symposium’s namesake, whose generosity made it possible to bring Professor Michael Allan Wolf to UF Law as the Richard E. Nelson Chair in Local Government Law.

Wolf then stepped to the podium and began by offering an analogy. He suggested that local government attorneys could find their ancient Greek equal in the muse Cassandra, who could tell the future, but never convince anyone of its truth. “So imagine you, Cassandra-like, trying to explain the due process clause to lay people,” Wolf said, stating that it’s not easy to get lay people to understand that, in law, words like ‘Congress’ may not mean what they think.

If that wasn’t enough to deal with, those Cassandras must also deal with voters, who Wolf analogized to sirens. “One of the toughest tasks that local governments have is to resist the insiders,” Wolf said, noting that individuals will often pressure their governments to pass unconstitutional measures. His solution to dealing with the sirens was a fitting one. “Put wax in your ears,” Wolf said.” “Well, leave them open a little, after all, they deserve to be heard.”

Ashira Ostrow, a professor at Hofstra University School of Law, took the podium next to speak about the ‘sacred’ side of things. This was represented by discussion of the fairly recent Federal RLUIPA statute (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person Act). While Ostrow, who holds a bachelor’s in religion in addition to her JD, discussed RLUIPA directly, she also discussed how it could be a model for land use planning as a whole.

The problem with contemporary zoning, Ostrow said, is that it usually lacks objective guidelines. As such, important decisions are often highly discretionary and suffer from “NIMBYism” – NIMBY meaning ‘not in my backyard.’ However, challenges brought under RLUIPA face stricter standards when as-applied challenges are brought, and Ostrow suggested that such a system would benefit zoning as a whole. “RLUIPA is important not only for religious land uses,” she said, “but for what it says about the land use process.”

Ostrow recognized the deferential the deferential standard created in the landmark zoning case of Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty, but also noted that Euclid was a facial challenge to the constitutionality of the zoning statute. Ostrow suggested that courts follow the case of Nectow v. City of Cambridge more often, as that case suggested a much less deferential standard when a challenge is applied to a specific circumstance.

Franklin Zemel, a partner at Arnstein and Lehr in Ft. Laurderdale, continued the discussion by sharing his experience in litigating these matters. Zemel told the audience of one of his clients, who were given a license to operate as a church meeting center, with the limitation that they could not provide church services. Zemel said that, in this case, one letter from him was enough to get the local government to change their seemingly illogical position.

Zemel applauded that local government for correcting their mistake, and then told the audience what often happens to those that insist on litigating the matter. Since prevailing parties are often able to recover attorney’s fees in these cases, judgments against local governments can get very expensive. Zemel highlighted a few cases in which the judgments and attorneys fees added up to hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars.

Alan Weinstein, a professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, and Marie Hartman, the City Attorney for Daytona Beach, spoke next. Their speeches covered the ‘profane’ side of things, with the focus on sexually-oriented businesses and how they can be regulated. Weinstein explained that such regulations are seen as content-neutral as long as the regulation is done for to reduce the crime associated with such businesses, and then sought to show that such a correlation does exist. Hartman followed, detailing the long road that Daytona Beach has traveled in their attempts to regulate sexually-oriented businesses in the city.

Students took the stage next, as 3L Tara Nelson and 2L Dwayne Robinson, discussed recent statutes and court decisions. Asmara Tekle, a professor at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law, and Steven Wernick, an attorney at Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod in Miami, capped off the event by discussing sex offender residency requirements.

This was the ninth symposium honoring Richard E. Nelson– who served with distinction as Sarasota County attorney for 30 years–and Jane Nelson, two loyal UF alumni who gave more than $1 million to establish the Richard E. Nelson Chair in Local Government Law, which sponsors the annual event. Their support of the Levin College of Law’s Environmental and Land Use Program has been key to the program’s success and national recognition for excellence.

Shay Bilchik

Two renowned innovators in the field of juvenile justice will outline their strategies for making positive changes in the juvenile justice system Feb. 19 and 20 at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. The free lectures, open to UF students and the general public, are part of UF Law’s juvenile justice conference, “Juvenile Justice: Passages, Prevention and Intervention.” The lectures will be held in UF Law’s Holland Hall room 285 C.

On Friday, Feb. 19, from noon to 1:30 p.m., Shay Bilchik, research professor, founder and director of the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University, former president of the Child Welfare League of America and a graduate of UF Law will present, “The Ebb and Flow of Juvenile Justice in America,” a discussion regarding the use of research and data to create and sustain effective responses to juvenile crime, policies and leadership efforts. Bilchik has been recognized four times by The NonProfit Times Power and Influence Top 50 for making his mark in public policy and championing child welfare issues.

On Saturday, Feb. 20, from noon to 2 p.m., Geoffrey Canada, founder and president of the Harlem Children’s Zone Project and author of Reaching Up for Manhood: Transforming the Lives of Boys in America, will present, “The Crisis Facing Youth – What Adults and Communities Can Do to Save Our Children.” Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone Project, a unique, holistic approach to rebuilding a community, have been featured on 60 Minutes, The Oprah Winfrey Show and Nightline, and was the subject of the book, Whatever it Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America, by Paul Tough. Following the lecture, Canada’s book will be on sale and the author will be available to sign his work from 2 – 3 p.m.

Nancy Dowd, UF law professor and director of the Center on Children and Families, said anyone interested in juvenile justice should make plans to hear these widely respected leaders.

“Supporting our youth is one of the critical issues of our time,” Dowd said. “Not only must we ensure justice, more importantly, we need to keep our youth out of the juvenile justice system. These speakers offer critical ways to accomplish this task.”

For more information, visit the conference Web site.

The one-day event, “Music Law Conference 2.0: Out of Beta,” in UF Law’s Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom (room 180) will explore legal issues that surround downloading and sharing music files and licensing music for video games and Internet radio. Panelists also will share their strategies for effectively promoting local bands through social networking and the Internet. Following the conference, which is free to UF students and faculty, there will be a reception from 7:30 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. and a live music showcase featuring local and regional bands from 9 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. at the Common Grounds in downtown Gainesville. Tickets for the music showcase are $6 if purchased before the event or $8 at the door. Add $2 for those under the age of 21.

Special to this year’s conference will be keynote speaker Josh Greenberg, co-founder, chief technical officer and vice president of products for Grooveshark, a Gainesville-based online music search engine and streaming service. According to the company’s Web site, Grooveshark was founded in 2006 by three UF undergraduates and now streams 50 to 60 million songs per month to more than 400,000 users. Greenberg’s presentation is titled, “Digital Music: Law and Technology.”

“Music consumption has changed radically within the past decade,” Greenberg said. “Peer-to-peer distribution caused a disruption that shook an entire industry and created a radical shift in music consumption. Meanwhile, as artists and record labels started to recognize the potential for monetization through digital music, innovative new business models were created that would have been unimaginable a few years earlier.”

Stephanie Falcon, a second-year law student and vice president of the music law conference, said the conference will offer seven CLEs and the opportunity to network with some of the sharpest legal minds working in music and entertainment law.

“The UF music law conference has really opened a lot of doors for me in the entertainment law industry,” Falcon said. “Last year’s conference allowed me to broaden my knowledge of music and entertainment law issues and provided me the opportunity to meet the leading experts in the field.”

To view the conference and music showcase schedule, speaker bios and to register, visit www.law.ufl.edu/musiclawconf.