For more information, please contact:
Gwen Osborne, director of public affairs, (312) 906-5251
ADVISORY TO PRODUCERS, COLUMNISTS, AND ASSIGNMENT, LEGAL, BUSINESS, ARTS, POLITICAL, INTERNATIONAL, PLANNING, CITY DESK, FEATURES AND DAYBOOK EDITORS
CHICAGO–March 9, 2009–Chicago-Kent College of Law and Stuart School of Business have experts available to discuss current issues. To reach experts on IIT's Downtown Campus, please call Gwen Osborne, director of public affairs, (312) 906-5251. Press releases and earlier advisories are available on our Web site: www.kentlaw.edu/news/advisory.
The Supreme Court Monday agreed to consider a case addressing the ability of investors to challenge mutual fund fees as excessive under the federal Investment Company Act. "This is a tremendously important case involving the way in which more than 50 million American households invest almost $10 trillion in investment funds," says Chicago-Kent professor William A. Birdthistle, who served as counsel of record and authored a successful amicus brief urging the justices to hear the case. At the lower level, Judges Easterbrook and Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vociferously disagreed about the competitiveness of the mutual fund industry, a question which the Supreme Court will now have to resolve, adds Professor Birdthistle. He is available for interviews about the case.
Kosovar independence--one year later. Professor Henry H. Perritt, Jr., has been to the region numerous times during the past decade. He is the author of Kosovo Liberation Army: The Inside Story of an Insurgency (University of Illinois Press 2008). In 2004, Professor Perritt convened a symposium of academics and policymakers--many from the University of Prishtina in Kosovo--to discuss a wide range of legal, political and economic issues an independent Kosovo would face. Professor Perritt is available for interviews.
March is Women's History Month. Chicago-Kent has legal scholars available to discuss landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions related to women's issues.
Lisa Pagan, the North Carolina mother whose two preschool-age children last week accompanied her when she reported for duty at Fort Benning, has been honorably discharged from the Army. Pagan enlisted in 2002 and achieved the rank of specialist before she was honorably discharged in 2005 and placed in the military's individual ready reserve program. Two years after her discharge, she was recalled to active duty but appealed her recall orders due to the lack of adequate child care. After Pagan's appeals were denied, she reported to Fort Benning with her children. After a week, she was discharged due to family hardship. The incident has reopened public debate about the role of women in the military. Chicago-Kent professor and military law expert Michael I. Spak is a co-author of Servicemember's Legal Guide: Everything You and Your Family Need to Know About the Law. Professor Spak served on active duty with the U.S. Army in the Judge Advocate General's Corps from 1963 to 1969 and has remained in the U.S. Army Reserve. As Colonel Spak, he is currently liaison officer of the Judge Advocate General's School in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is available for interviews.
"A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry opened on Broadway March 11, 1959. The award-winning drama was inspired by a legal challenge by the playwright's father to restrictive covenants in Chicago real estate sales that prevented African-Americans from living in certain neighborhoods. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case, Hansberry v. Lee, in 1940. Chicago-Kent professor Dan Tarlock, who teaches courses in property law, is available to talk about the Supreme Court decision and about racially restrictive covenants in Chicago prior to 1948.
Downtown Campus Events:
March 24: Internationally renowned labor economist Richard B. Freeman will deliver the 31st annual Kenneth M. Piper Lecture addressing the topic "Return of the Public: Why Market Fundamentalism Failed and What Labor Can Do About It to Save the World." Professor Freeman's lecture will analyze the impact of the current economic downturn on the U.S. labor market and discuss how organized labor can effect positive change by being a collective voice of workers. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Chicago-Kent's Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie Auditorium. No reservations are required. Attorneys who attend are eligible for 1.25 hours of Illinois Minimum Continuing Legal Education credit. For more information, visit www.kentlaw.edu/depts/cle on the Web or call (312) 906-5090.
April 1: "The New Climate for Confronting Climate: The Energy Sector and an Agenda for Change." John Rowe, chairman and CEO of Exelon and an Illinois Institute of Technology trustee, and Carrie Hightman, executive vice president and chief legal officer of NiSource Inc., will discuss the government's involvement in modernizing America's energy resources in an era of climate change. The program, which is free and open to the public, will begin at noon in the Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie Auditorium. For more information, call (312) 906-5236.
April 7: 19th annual Henry Morris Lecture in International and Comparative Law. Professor Catherine Kessedjian of the University of Panthéon-Assas Paris II, France, will address the topic "Uniformity v. Diversity in Law in a Global World: Examples from Commercial and Procedural Law." Her lecture will analyze the ways in which diversity and uniformity interact in global commercial and procedural law. Professor Kessedjian served as deputy secretary-general of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (1996-2000), on secondment from the Université de Bourgogne, where she was responsible for preparing and monitoring negotiations for the proposed worldwide convention on jurisdiction and judgements. Professor Kessedjian currently serves as a mediator or arbitrator in a selected number of transnational disputes. The program is free and open to the public. No reservations are required. Attorneys who attend are eligible for 1 hour of Illinois Minimum Continuing Legal Education credit. The lecture is funded through the Henry Morris Endowment. An 1889 graduate of what is now Chicago-Kent College of Law, Henry Crittendon Morris enjoyed a distinguished career as an international lawyer and diplomat. For more information, visit www.kentlaw.edu/depts/cle on the Web or call (312) 906-5090.
April 7: An Evening with the Lincoln Trio and Welz Kauffman. The Lincoln Trio--pianist Marta Aznavoorian, cellist David Cunliffe and violinist Desirée Ruhstrat--will perform at Chicago-Kent as part of its statewide tour, sponsored by Ravinia Festival, commemorating the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Established in 2003, the Lincoln Trio is an ensemble-in-residence at the Music Institute of Chicago. The Lincoln Trio's performance will include newly composed works that include spoken-word passages inspired by the life and times of the 16th president. The works were commissioned through Ravinia Festival's first composition competition. Welz Kauffman, Ravinia's president and chief executive officer, will narrate. The concert will also include works by composers who were prominent during Lincoln's lifetime, such as Felix Mendelssohn who, like Lincoln, was born in 1809. This program is presented by Chicago-Kent College of Law's Institute for Law and the Humanities as part of its 2008-09 "Connecting With Chicago's Cultural Institutions" series and Chicago-Kent's Office of Alumni Relations. The program is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. A reception and registration will be held from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. The concert will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie Auditorium. For more information or to make reservations, contact Kevin Jones at kjones@kentlaw.edu or call (312) 906-5113 by Friday, April 3.
April 15: Free Speech and Human Dignity. Chicago-Kent professor Steven J. Heyman will discuss his book Free Speech and Human Dignity (Yale University Press 2008). Professor Heyman will discuss the division between liberals and progressives who have been sharply divided between strongly advocating free speech and advocating the regulation of speech to protect human dignity and equality. His scholarship seeks to reconcile these opposing views by developing a liberal humanist theory of the First Amendment. Professor Heyman then applies this theory to a wide range of controversies --from hate speech and pornography to anti-abortion demonstrations and picketing at military funerals. This program, sponsored by the Chicago-Kent chapter of the American Constitution Society, will begin at 3 p.m. in room 170. For more information, please contact Julia Ellis at jellis@kentlaw.edu.
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