Hot Topics

Two Hot Topic Panels Chosen for Annual Meeting

For the third consecutive year, the Executive Committee offered individual law professors the opportunity to propose and organize panel presentations on late-breaking, or “Hot” topics. The purpose of creating this new category of program was to formalize the pre-existing practice of adding programs on matters relevant to legal educators that could not have been foreseen in time for one of the Association’s Sections to offer programming. This year’s committee chair, Immediate Past President Gerald Torres, in consultation with the AALS Executive Committee, has selected two panels, which will be presented on Friday, January 6. The two panels chosen reflect the requirements that the subjects be topical, that they be proposed by individuals and not Sections, Committees or any other kind of organization, and that a range of perspectives be included in the presentation. It was also important that the topics should not be ones addressed elsewhere in the Meeting Program. The topics chosen are as follows:

Professors Charles E. Daye and Abigail T. Panter, Ph.D. of the UNC School of Law and Department of Psychology, respectively, will present preliminary findings from the Educational Diversity Project’s on-going empirical research on a panel titled First Findings: Does Race Contribute to Educational Diversity? Grutter v. Bollinger affirmed that race may be considered as a plus factor in selecting students for admission using a narrowly tailored time-limited system. The project investigates whether race contributes to educational diversity and if so, what does race contribute that other personal attributes do not. In Fall 2004, the project surveryed 8,500 incoming first-year students in a sample of about one third of the ABA-law schools. The presenters will report preliminary findings while modeling the value of interdisciplinary and interinstitutional collaboration. This panel will be presented on Friday, January 6, 8:30-10:15 a.m. in the Harding room on the Mezzanine Level at the Marriott Wardman Park.

Ambassador Feisal al-Istrabadi, Deputy Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations will be joining the panel titled Does the Iraqi Constitution Provide a Framework for a Viable Social Order? A Post Election Assessment. In the wake of the first elections under the new Iraqi Constitution and amidst increasing pressure for the United States to withdraw from that country, this panel will examine the extent to which the Iraqi Constitution is capable of providing the institutional underpinnings for a successful multiethnic, democratic society. Panelists include: Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies; Ambassador Feisal al-Istrabadi, Deputy Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations; Noah Feldman, New York University School of Law; and Paul Williams, American University Washington College of Law, with Andrew Strauss, Widener University School of Law, moderating. This panel take place on Friday, 1:30-3:15 p.m. in the Harding Room on the Mezzanine Level at the Marriott Wardman Park.