Join Rutgers University, Newark, in a Celebration of the World’s Oldest Written Constitution
EDITOR’S NOTE: Members of the media are welcome to cover this event; please contact Carla Capizzi, 973/353-5263
“Resolved: Political speech by private, for-profit corporations should receive a comparable level of First Amendment protection to political speech by individuals.” On Sept. 22, a panel of four legal experts will debate that question, as part of the Constitution Day program at Rutgers University in Newark. They will present both sides of the issue, which was raised in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and which resulted in a landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in January 2010, when the court decided in the affirmative.
The program, which is free and open to the public, takes place from 4 – 6 p.m. in the Rutgers Center for Law and Justice, 123 Washington St., in the Baker Moot Courtroom. The first 100 attendees will receive a free copy of the U.S. Constitution in honor of the 223nd anniversary of the document’s signing.
“It is important to celebrate the Constitution because many students don’t appreciate the historical importance of the Constitution as the foundation for democratic rights, not only for the past but for the future as well,” states Vice Chancellor Marcia Brown, coordinator of the event.
Two debaters will argue for the affirmative: Ronald K. Chen, vice dean, professor of law, and Judge Leonard I. Garth Scholar at the Rutgers School of Law-Newark, and Michael W. Macleod-Ball, chief legislative and policy counsel, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Arguing for the negative are two Rutgers-Newark law professors, Frank Askin and James Gray Pope. Pope is professor of law and Sidney Reitman Scholar, while Askin is a distinguished professor of law and director of the school’s Constitutional Litigation Clinic. The debate will be moderated by Bernard W. Bell, a Rutgers professor of law and Herbert Hannoch Scholar. (See biographies of all at end of press release).
An audience Q & A will follow; refreshments will be served.
This is Rutgers-Newark’s sixth annual program marking Constitution Day, an American federal observance that recognizes the completion of the drafting of the United States Constitution in 1787. The document was the work of a distinguished group of delegates, including two future Presidents of the United States, who had been called upon to remedy the defects of the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution was adopted when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document the following year.
The federal law establishing Constitution Day was created in 2004; previously it was known as “Citizenship Day.”
The RUTGERS CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE is wheelchair-accessible, as is the Rutgers-Newark campus. Rutgers‑Newark can be reached by New Jersey Transit buses and trains, the PATH train and Amtrak from New York City, and by Newark Light Rail. Metered parking is available on University Avenue and at Rutgers‑Newark’s public parking garage, at 200 University Ave. Printable campus maps and driving directions are available online at: http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/maps/index.php.
BIOGRAPHIES OF CONSTITUTION DAY PANELISTS, MODERATOR
Vice Dean, Clinical Professor of Law, and Judge Leonard I. Garth Scholar Ronald K. Chen
Ronald Chen returned to the law school in January 2010 after serving for four years as the first Public Advocate of New Jersey in 13 years when the Department of the Public Advocate was restored in 2006. As public advocate, he was charged with providing advocacy for a number of specific constituencies, including elder citizens, persons with disabilities, mental health services’ consumers, and ratepayers, and was generally given standing to represent the public interest in legal proceedings. His areas of focus included eminent domain reform, voters’ rights, affordable housing, childhood lead poisoning prevention, deinstitutionalization of persons with developmental disabilities and mental health services’ consumers, and affordable energy for ratepayers.
Chen earned a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College in 1980 and graduated from Rutgers School of Law–Newark with high honors in 1983, where he was editor-in-chief of the Rutgers Law Review and the Saul Tischler Scholar.
Professor of Law and Sidney Reitman Scholar James Gray Pope
Pope received an A.B. and J.D. from Harvard, and a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton. After law school, he clerked for Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird of the California Supreme Court. Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty in 1986, he was associated with the Boston law firm of Segal, Roitman & Coleman, where he represented labor unions and employees.
Pope’s articles about constitutional law, workers’ rights, and labor history have appeared in a wide variety of publications including the Columbia Law Review, Law & History Review, the Michigan Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Texas Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, Labor History, New Labor Forum (with Peter Kellman & Ed
Bruno), and Working USA (also with Kellman & Bruno).
Distinguished Professor of Law, Robert E. Knowlton Scholar, and Director of the Constitutional Litigation Clinic Frank Askin
Professor Askin entered Rutgers School of Law–Newark in September 1963 as a student — after an earlier career as a journalist and was appointed to the faculty upon his graduation with highest honors in 1966. Admitted to the law school without an undergraduate degree, he was awarded a B.A. from City College of New York at the same time he received his J.D. from Rutgers.
Askin has been elected to the 2010-2011 board of directors of Project Vote, a national nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes voting in low-income and minority communities.
In 1970, Askin established the Constitutional Litigation Clinic; under his guidance, the clinic litigated the first police surveillance cases in the nation; battled the FBI over the investigation and maintenance of files on two precocious New Jersey high schoolers who corresponded with “the wrong persons”; defended affirmative action programs up to the U.S. Supreme Court; challenged the New Jersey State Police for stopping and searching “long-haired travelers” on the state’s highways; argued for the right of the homeless to vote and to have access to public library facilities; and protected the right of grassroots advocacy groups to take their messages door-to-door and to privately owned shopping malls.
Chief Legislative and Policy Counsel Michael W. Macleod-Ball
In September 2007, Macleod-Ball joined the ACLU Washington Legislative Office as chief legislative and policy counsel, where he managed a team of policy counsels and lobbyists who worked with Congress and the White House on a non-partisan basis to preserve and protect Americans’ civil liberties and constitutional rights.
Prior to his work at the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, Macleod-Ball provided legal advice and advocacy leadership for 25 years in New England and Alaska. As executive director of the ACLU of Alaska, he helped form Alaska’s first statewide LGBT advocacy organization, challenged unfair voting laws, and Macleod-Ball conducted the first known statewide survey of sex education.
Macleod-Ball graduated from the University of Vermont with a degree in psychology, and graduated cum laude from Boston’s Suffolk University Law School, where he served as a law review editor and wrote on religious liberty issues.
Moderator: Professor of Law and Herbert Hannoch Scholar Bernard W. Bell
Bell received a B.A. cum laude from Harvard and a J.D. from Stanford, where he was notes editor of the Law Review and a member of Order of the Coif. He clerked for Judge Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White and then practiced with Sullivan and Cromwell in New York. Before coming to Rutgers in 1994, he served as senior litigation counsel and, earlier, as Assistant U.S. Attorney (Civil Division) in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
Bell’s scholarly articles have been published in the Stanford Law Review, the Texas Law Review, the North Carolina Law Review, the Ohio State Law Review, the George Washington Law Review, the Pittsburgh Law Review, the Federal Communications Law Journal, and the Journal of Law and Politics. He has has been a visiting professor at Columbia Law School and the George Washington University School of Law.
Bell is a member of the ABA Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice and co-chair of the section’s Constitutional Law and Separation of Powers Committee.
Media Contact: Carla Capizzi
973/353-5263
E-mail: capizzi@rutgers.edu
