Donning a wizard’s robe and hat, Danaya Wright, Clarence J. TeSelle Professor of Law, discussed the law and the absence of law in the magical world of Harry Potter. Her Sept. 27 discussion, “Curses, Crimes and Covenants: The Law and Harry Potter,” analyzed a variety of legal issues within the wildly successful Harry Potter books and movies.

“Thinking critically of Rowling’s magical world can help us to think about our own laws, what they do, what they constrain, and ultimately who benefits from them,” Wright said.

Wright spoke on issues such as privacy law, gun/wand control and criminal punishments. She highlighted similarities and differences between the law of Wemuggles – those without magic – and the law within Harry Potter’s world – why some laws are unnecessary in the wizarding world, and why other situations demand a different kind of law.

Wright also hypothesized why these differences may make sense in a world of diverse creatures with various magical capabilities and stated that the presence or absence of magic changes the ground rules of how and why laws are created.

“If a wizard can apparate (teleport) into anyone’s house, what kind of privacy laws could be designed to protect wizard liberties?” Wright asked. “In other words, are certain laws not necessary because wizards have more information or are better able to uncover the truth, and do they need other laws because of their unique capabilities?”

Students, faculty, staff, and the public gathered in Smathers Library for this lecture as part of Harry Potter’s World: Renaissance Science, Magic, and Medicine, a traveling exhibit from the National Library of Medicine. This exhibit, hosted by the UF Health Science Center Library, ran from Aug. 28 through Oct. 4. Accompanying the exhibit were speaker and film series featuring presentations by faculty from UF and beyond.

Wright has also contributed to The Law and Harry Potter by writing about how family law is represented in the series.

Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, debated Danaya Wright, UF Research Foundation and Clarence J. TeSelle Professor of Law, over the Defense of Marriage Act in a Federalist Society event last month. UF Law Professor Lyrissa Lidsky, right, served as moderator. (Photo by Nicole Safker)

More than 200 people watched Wednesday as Danaya Wright, UF Research Foundation and Clarence J. TeSelle Professor of Law, debated with a legal expert from the Alliance Defense Fund over Congress’s power to define marriage.

“The Federal Defense of Marriage Act: Is It Constitutional?” was a debate sponsored by the UF Federalist Society and OUTLaw: UF Law’s Gay & Straight Alliance. Students, faculty and others interested in the subject were invited to the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom, HOL 180, at the UF Levin College of Law to watch Wright and Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, argue the issues behind the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

The Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law in 1996, defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman for the purposes of federal law and gives states the option to not recognize domestic partnerships or other civil unions that are official in another state.

“Nimocks testified this summer before the Senate Judiciary Committee on behalf of DOMA,” said Jordan Pratt (3L), co-president of The UF Federalist Society, “and we thought it would be a real treat for students to get to ask questions of someone who is an actual participant in the debate on Capitol Hill.”

When the UF Federalist Society announced it would be bringing Nimocks as part of its speaker series, it invited progressive groups on campus to comment. OUTLaw responded with the idea for a debate between Nimocks and Wright.

“We wanted to respond in some way,” said Max Wihnyk (2L) and president of OUTLaw, “but we weren’t sure how. We worked with the UF Federalist Society and decided a debate would be the most helpful and the most fruitful for all of the law students.”

Nimocks and Wright were each given an allotted time to make their arguments, with Nimocks going first with his points and last with a rebuttal to Wright’s position. Arguments ranged from constitutional to economic to historical, showing the issue of defining marriage goes beyond that of morality.

“We believe that balanced, open, and respectful debate fosters the values upon which the legal academy was founded,” Pratt said, “and we are happy to provide a forum where ideas can be discussed among students and faculty.”

Nimocks argued that the economic benefits of marriage, such as tax breaks, were incentives for procreation and that judicial precedent gave Congress the power to limit such benefits to certain groups of people.

“The Equal Protection Clause does not require that we treat different things the same,” Nimocks said. “We would have to believe there are no differences between men and women to believe that what sexes make up a marriage would make no difference.”

Wright’s counterpoint was that DOMA violates the United States Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and, in some applications, may violate the Tenth Amendment. She also addressed Nimocks’ economic argument by discussing the circumstances under which married couples do not procreate while same-sex couples may successfully adopt and raise children.

“If society cares about children, it should encourage same-sex marriage,” Wright said. “There is no rational basis for denying those who society deem more at risk of social and health problems from participating in an institution that is proven to lower these risks.”

After Nimocks and Wright concluded their arguments, attendees were given the opportunity to ask the speakers questions about their positions on DOMA and the future of the act.

“We had 203 people in a room, all with different opinions, and they each got to listen to — and participate in — a respectful two-way dialogue on an issue that often evokes strong feelings on both sides,” Pratt said. “We would call that a success.”

As part of diversity month, University of Florida LGBT Affairs created a “Making it Better” video, which is a compilation of UF faculty, support staff, and students and can be viewed here.

• “Can health care suit make headway?” (March 23, Florida News Network)
  Baldwin told the Florida News Network that the proposed lawsuit by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is on shaky ground when it comes to the commerce clause in the U.S. Constitution. “The only issue that the court would look at (would be to) see if the Congress has the constitutional authority to enact this legislation,” he said. “And all they would have to look at is Article I, Section 8.”

• Dale was appointed to another five year term on the editorial board of Law and History Review.

Mary Jane Angelo

• Published “Stumbling Toward Success: A Story of Adaptive Law and Ecological Resilience” in the Nebraska Law Review

George “Bob” Dekle
Legal Skills Professor

• August 23, 2009, Ft. Myers News Press
  Dekle provides insight into how some cases are perused and others are not in the case of child negligence. “Ft Myers parents’ substance abuse can be deadly to infants; Simple negligence is not enough to support a criminal charge,” said Bob Dekle, a University of Florida legal skills professor who worked as an assistant state attorney for three decades.
• August 22, 2009, Daytona News Journal
  Dekle provided insight into prosecuting an officer for any crime. “Prosecuting police officers is not an activity which tends to endear you to other police officers,” Dekle wrote. “You have to be very diplomatic so as not to erode the good will of uncharged officers.”
• August 18, 2009, Daily Business Review
  Dekle shed light on a judge’s decision to keep illegally recorded tapes sealed. “The public good has very little to do with the exclusionary rules,” said Bob Dekle. “Everybody in the entire country could know the circumstance of the conversation, and it still isn’t admissible in court against the aggrieved party.”

Mark Fenster
Associate Dean for Faculty Development

• July 14, 2009,New York Times
  Fenster commented on conspiracy theories, the people that believe those in power can’t be trusted and how internet communications has enable those who think alike to come together.
• July 29, 2009,WBUR Boston
  Fenster was interviewed as an expert in conspiracy theories. “The story that these folks tell is based on the idea that Obama is an illegitimate president,” says Mark Fenster, author of Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in the American Culture. “Any evidence of legitimacy would spoil the narrative, and that would end the pleasure of spinning out the narrative,” says Fenster, an associate dean at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law.

Alyson Flournoy
Professor; Director of Environmental and Land Use Law Program; UF Research Foundation Professor

• Published “Protecting a Natural Resource Legacy While Promoting Resilience: Can It Be Done?” in the Nebraska Law Review.

Diane Mazur
Professor

• July 6, 2009, 40 Business Journals, Forbes, Sun Herald, Examiner, and Breitbart News etc.
  The Palm Center released a memo in response to an announcement by Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, last week saying he had directed his general cousel to study the flexibility contained in the law and to find “a more humane way to apply the law” while awaiting legislative appeal. The legal memo also makes clear that any steps which “fall short of ceasing all discharges under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ will have a negligible operational effect on gay and lesbian troops, and therefore on our national security.”

Jon Mills
Director of Center for Governmental Responsibility; Dean Emeritus; Professor

• August 11, 2009,Sun Sentinel
  Mills weighed in on the appropriateness of Brogan’s pitch for a private development. Jon Mills said he sees no problem if Brogan is not being paid, and if there’s a public interest aspect to the project, such as environmentally friendly development. “Presidents don’t lose their free speech rights,” he said.
• Delivered the paper “The New Global Press and Privacy Intrusions: The Two Edged Sword” at the Privacy Law Scholars Conference, hosted by the Berkeley Law School.

Katheryn Russell-Brown
Chesterfield Smith Professor; Director of Center for Study of Race and Race Relations

• July 24, 2009, USA Today and Miami Herald
  The Gates story has captured the nation because it has a “perfect storm” of ingredients, said Katheryn Russell-Brown. The ongoing question of whether the U.S. has moved past racism combined with the fact that Gates actually studies African-American issues — all taking place on the hallowed confines of Harvard — provided for this explosion of interest, Russell-Brown said. “Many people want to believe that now that we have an African American in the White House, that now we can get past all this race stuff,” said Russell-Brown, who wrote The Color of Crime, a book about race, crime and justice.

Michael Siebecker
Associate Professor

• Recently completed his Ph.D in Political Science at Columbia University. His article “Building a ‘New Institutional’ Approach to Corporate Speech,” which was published last year in the Alabama Law Review, was reprinted in the 2009 edition of the First Amendment Handbook, which Dean Rodney Smolla edited.

Barbara Bennett Woodhouse
David H. Levin Chair in Family Law; Professor; Director, Center on Children and Families and Family Law Certificate Program;

• “Hidden in Plain Sight: the Tragedy of Children’s Rights from Ben Franklin to Lionel Tate” was selected for the annual prize of the Human Rights section of the American Political Science Association.

Danaya Wright
UF Research Foundation and Clarence J. TeSelle Professor

• July 8, 2009, Wright gave testimony regarding the railbanking statute before the Surface Transportation Board (the successor to the Interstate Commerce Commission) in Washington, D.C.

As chair for one year, Wright presides at the senate meetings, serves as a member of the University Board of Trustees and the Advisory Council of Faculty Senates (a council made up of all 11 Florida university Senate Chairs), and chairs the Senate Steering Committee. She meets weekly with President Machen and Provost Fouke, and she can ride in the Homecoming Parade (which she declined to do).

Wright spent the summer meeting with every dean, vp, each college cohort of senators, many of the faculties of the 12-month colleges, and the student senate. This fall she is meeting with the 9-month faculty, all aimed at facilitating dialogue between faculty, students, and administration in the restructuring of governance mechanisms within their respective units. She wants every college, department, center, and academic unit to put in place appropriate procedures for insuring that the appropriate voices are all heard when important decisions are being made.

“I think most of the problems in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences could have been avoided if there had been more faculty and student participation in governance in that college,” she says.

Shared governance doesn’t mean faculty get to dictate what will happen. Rather, it recognizes that faculty should have the key voice in developing policies around the academic mission of the university. “It’s my job as faculty representative to remind the Board of Trustees that we should have a say in the long-range plan for this university.”

The Faculty Senate is the legislative body for the university, and as such it makes decisions regarding a wide range of issues. “We can’t hire and fire the president, but we can certainly make his life miserable if we feel we are being directed down the wrong path. At the same time, when we all work toward the same goal there is really no stopping us,” she says.

When she’s not busy telling the president how to run the university, she is teaching, writing, serving on student committees, and fulfilling the rest of her law school duties. “The workload is phenomenal,” she said. “Fortunately, Dean Jerry was the chair of his Faculty Senate at the University of Kansas, so he understands and has given me a lighter teaching load this year.”

Specializing in property law, Wright teaches classes in Property, Estates and Trusts, History of Women and the Law, and English Legal History. Wright is also a strong advocate for Rails to Trail Conservancy, a group dedicated to converting abandoned railroad corridors into recreational trails, and her research on property law has been cited in numerous cases involving rail corridor conversion.