From Dr. Haley Duschinski
Director of the Center for Law, Justice & Culture
Sept. 5, 2017
The Center for Law, Justice & Culture welcomes OHIO students, faculty, alumni, and friends to an exciting new academic year at Ohio University!
Dr. Haley Duschinski, Director of the Center for Law, Justice & Culture
The fall semester is underway, and the CLJC community has much to celebrate. Over the past four years, the Center has expanded significantly through support from the Ohio University College of Arts & Sciences. The CLJC administrative staff currently consists of myself and Larry Hayman (B.A. ’03), Ohio University’s Pre-Law Specialist and Advisor.
Our academic community now consists of 21 faculty affiliates, five cohorts of exceptional undergraduate certificate students, and an energetic student organization, Students for Law, Justice & Culture — all of whom share a fundamental commitment to examining law from a liberal arts perspective.
Last year we welcomed two new faculty members: Dr. Kirstine Taylor, specializing in the politics of race in American democratic institutions and thought as well as as African American political thought, as an Assistant Professor in Political Science and Law, Justice & Culture; and Dr. Daniel Moak, focusing on race and politics with an emphasis on recognizing voices atypical to the discourse surrounding race, as Assistant Professor of African American Studies.
In the summer of 2017, the Center ran its second annual two-week residential Summer Law & Trial Institute (SLTI) for 18 high school students. Directed by Larry Hayman, SLTI is the first high school program to directly address the complex legal challenges associated with social and economic inequality in Appalachian Ohio. The selective program targets high-achieving students from Appalachia, and it raises their critical awareness of issues relating to housing, property, natural resources, education, transportation, and access to justice in the region. This program is offered at no cost to students through generous alumni and faculty participation and a grant from the Ohio State Bar Foundation.
Through its interdisciplinary curricular theme Making and Breaking the Law, CLJC is offering special courses this year for undergraduate students interested in law and society studies. In fall semester, we are offering our fourth installment of the interdisciplinary gateway course for 90 freshman and sophomore students called CAS 2500: Breaking the Law. The course is co-taught this year by Dr. Haley Duschinski and Dr. Bruce Hoffman. We are offering two freshmen learning communities, the Pre-Law Learning Community (linked to CAS 2500 as well as Introduction to American Politics with Dr. Susan Burgess and Introduction to Sociology with Dr. Bruce Hoffman) and the Law, Justice & Culture Learning Community (linked to Introduction to Anthropology with Dr. Smoki Musaraj and Introduction to African American Studies with Dr. Daniel Moak), as well as CAS 2300: Themes in Action. In the spring, Dr. Haley Duschinski will teach our special course for new certificate students, LJC 2000: Core Course in Law, Justice & Culture.
Looking to the year ahead, CLJC and SLJC are pleased to announce our annual Critical Resistance event series on the theme Critical Resistance to Authoritarian Rule. You can learn more about our series events through the Center Newsletter and the SLJC Facebook page.
We are celebrating the start of fall semester with our annual Constitution Day events. Dr. Naomi Murakawa, Associate Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, will deliver the Constitution Day lecture on “Rights in the Penal Democracy,” focusing on why policing reforms fail and serve to perpetuate racialized state violence. Her talk will be on Thursday, Sept. 28, at 5 p.m. in the Athena Theater on Court Street. We will host at informal Meet & Greet for Professor Murakawa at the CLJC student lounge at Baker 001 on Thursday, September 28 at 12:00p.m.
We are pleased to collaborate with the Middle East and North African Studies program and others to bring Dr. Lisa Hajjar, Professor of Sociology at the University of California – Santa Barbara, to campus for a public lecture on “The Afterlives of Torture” on Wednesday, Nov. 8, at 5 p.m. in Schoonover 145. Professor Hajjar’s talk will situate current national debates over torture policy in the context of a longer history of U.S torture and also explore how the post-9/11 torture program instituted by the Bush administration in 2001 continues to haunt national politics and international relations, despite the program’s cancellation by President Obama in 2009.
We are also pleased to collaborate with the Middle East and North African Studies and Islamic Studies programs, as well as others, on the “Travel Ban” Countries Film Series, featuring films from Muslim-majority countries that have been targeted by the Trump Administration’s executive order suspending travel, immigration, and refugee resettlement. The series will feature three films this semester: Men in the Arena (Somalia) on September 13; The Devil Came on Horseback (Sudan) on October 3; and A Separation (Iran) on November 30. All films are at 6:30p.m. in Seigfred 401. Please contact Professor Ziad Abu-Rish, Assistant Professor of History, for more information.
We are partnering with the Center for International Studies to host international justice luminary and OHIO alumnus David Crane, Professor of Practice at Syracuse University College of Law, for a panel on “The Global Professional in Today’s World” on Friday, Oct. 6, at noon in Baker 240-242. From 2002 to 2005, Professor Crane was the founding Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a major innovative international war crimes tribunal, appointed to that position by Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan.
Our annual Law Fair will be held on Monday, Oct. 16, and our annual Pre-Law Day featuring panels of alumni lawyers will be held on Thursday, Nov. 2, and Friday, Nov. 3. Director of the Legal Aid Society of Columbus Kate McGarvey, an OHIO alumna, will deliver the keynote address at 5 p.m. in Baker Theater on Thursday, Nov. 2. We are looking forward to hosting her during her return to campus!
We are now accepting applications for our sixth annual Spring Break Study Abroad Program on Human Rights, Law & Justice in Northern Ireland, directed by Dr. Haley Duschinski. We are hosting an information session on Wednesday, Sept. 20, at 5 p.m. in Bentley Annex 007. The application deadline is Monday, Oct. 3.
We are pleased to introduce our 2016-17 office team: Ashley Fishwick (English Pre-Law and Political Science majors), Jessica Roth (Sociology and War and Peace majors with a certificate in Law, Justice & Culture), and Gabrielle Tharp (Political Science and History majors with a minor in World Religions). They will work with us on event planning, public relations, and alumni outreach.
This year’s student leaders in the CLJC community include Jessica Roth, President of Students for Law, Justice & Culture; Keeghan White President of Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity; Alexa Jesser, President of Ohio University Mock Trial Club; Nicholas Concilla, President of the ACLU Student Group; and Sadie Hickle, Chair of the Board of the Center for Student Legal Services. You can learn more about these student organizations here.
The Center is open on the ground floor of Bentley Hall every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We encourage everyone to please drop by to visit us, and to browse our Law, Justice & Culture library collection of books and videos. We also offer an extensive collection of law school and LSAT preparation materials. Larry Hayman offers walk-in advising hours every Wednesday from 1 to 4 p.m.
We hope that you will be able to join us, so that we will have the opportunity to talk in person. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to call, email, or visit us in Bentley Hall.
I’ll close the newsletter with two final notes on departures.
This year, we send our warmest wishes to three CLJC faculty affiliates who have left Ohio University. Dr. Marina Peterson has taken a position as Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. Marina was an active member of our Research Seminar Series, our CLJC Executive Committee, and our CAS 2500: Breaking the Law teaching team. Dr. Kelly Faust has taken a position as Assistant Professor at St. Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana. At OHIO, Kelly specialized in teaching policing, gender violence, and state crime, and she memorably spoke with passion on the CLJC/SLJC Ferguson Panel in fall 2014. Tom Costello has returned to Detroit, where he built his career as past President and CEO of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion. During his past several years as Visiting Lecturer and Faculty in Residence at the School of Communication, Tom taught classes in courtroom rhetoric and led students on a week-long civil rights tour of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. We wish them well on their new life adventures, and we will always consider them part of the CLJC family!
And finally, it is with extremely heavy hearts that we say goodbye to our dear friend and colleague, Adrienne Gavula (1982-2017). Adrienne was a fearless warrior for civil liberties and social justice and a friend to many members of the Center for Law, Justice & Culture community at Ohio University. During her time at Ohio University in 2000-2004, she took on leadership roles in the ACLU student chapter as public relations director, planning events on topics ranging from the USA Patriot Act to access to reproductive healthcare. She began working for ACLU of Ohio upon her graduation, most recently with the Columbus Office as regional director from 2013 to 2015 and development director from 2015 to present. Adrienne maintained close connections to many members of the CLJC community — supervising CLJC student interns at the ACLU of Ohio’s Columbus Office, mentoring student leaders of the reinvigorated ACLU student chapter, and sharing her time and expertise with students who shared her passions over informal coffee and lunch meetings. She joined us on campus on Valentine’s Day 2017 for a full day of classroom lectures and student meetings, culminating in a public lecture on “The Future of Civil Liberties under the Trump Administration” to a standing room only crowd in Baker Center 240-242. Most recently, she hosted the Summer Law & Trial Institute, donating her time to explain the ACLU’s mission and inspiring the next generation of social justice advocates. She was especially passionate about women’s reproductive freedom, solitary confinement, and disability rights. Adrienne passed away unexpectedly, and too soon, on Friday, September 2. Adrienne’s profound courage and steadfast commitment to creating a better world provide a shining example for the rest of us to follow. The ACLU Ohio tribute statement in Adrienne’s memory is posted here: http://www.acluohio.org/about/history/tributes/adrienne-gavula. We will communicate ways to honor Adrienne and her memory in the coming weeks.
Warmest wishes,
Haley Duschinski
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Director of the Center for Law, Justice & Culture
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