NOTE: Unless otherwise indicated, all events listed will be held via Zoom. Check listings for reservation requirements and links. All times Eastern Daylight Time.
Reminder: Although Labor Day is a federal and university holiday, classes are meeting on Monday, September 7.
Monday
Work from Home Tips and Tricks
Join this year’s Practice Group Advisors for a zoom session focused on thriving while working from home. This session is geared toward 1Ls but is open to all students. Please register in advance. PGAs: Jozie Barton and Emily Sery. 5:30 p.m. Register here.
Tuesday
Perspectives on Race, Law, and Equality: Professors Barbara O’Brien and Catherine Grosso
Professors Barbara O’Brien and Catherine Grosso (Michigan State University) present “Local History, Practice and Statistics: A Study on the Influence of Race on the Administration of Capital Punishment in Hamilton County, Ohio (1992-2017).” 6:00-7:00 p.m. For more information, please visit law.indiana.edu/race.
Work from Home Tips and Tricks
Join this year’s Practice Group Advisors for a zoom session focused on thriving while working from home. This session is geared toward 1Ls but is open to all students. Please register in advance. PGAs: Kacey Bengel and Logan Tedrow. 7:00 p.m. Register here.
Wednesday
Work from Home Tips and Tricks
Join this year’s Practice Group Advisors for a zoom session focused on thriving while working from home. This session is geared toward 1Ls but is open to all students. Please register in advance. PGAs: Ziyu Ma and Bryan San Jose. 6:00 p.m. Register here.
Sherman Minton Advocacy Board Research Session
Join the Law Library’s Professor Kim Mattioli for a quick information session about the appellate research process. Professor Mattioli has prepared materials to aid your research and will walk through how to use those resources during this meeting. 5:00 p.m. Please register here.
Thursday
Pharmaceutical Innovations: Patents and the Politics of COVID-19
Join the Center for IP Research, Eli Lilly, and Roche for a virtual panel discussion on the role of the Bayh-Dole Act in ensuring development of, and access to, new treatments and diagnostics relating to COVID-19. Panelists are Danica Hostettler, Assistant General Patent Counsel, Eli Lilly & Company (moderator); Joseph Allen, Founder and Executive Director, The Bayh-Dole 40 Coalition; Patty Martin, President & CEO, BioCrossroads; Robert Sahr, Counsel, Wolf Greenfield; and Jacob Sherkow, Professor, University of Illinois College of Law. 1.5 hours of CLE available. Noon-1:30 p.m. To RSVP, email Gloria Kottolowski at kottlowski_gloria_j@lilly.com
ChIPs Coffee Break
Join ChIPs Maurer for our first (virtual) coffee break of the fall semester. Our student leaders will provide an introduction to ChIPs, its mission, and what we have planned for the fall. ChIPs is a nonprofit with over 3,000 members dedicated to advancing women at the confluence of technology, law, and policy. ChIPs has the dual purpose of increasing diversity and inclusion in these fields as well as accelerating the progress of innovation that benefits our society. 5:00-6:00 p.m. Register here.
LGBTQ+ Project Movie Night
Join the LGBTQ+ Project for a screening of the pilot episode of Pose. Set in the 1980s, Pose focuses on New York City's LGBT community and ballroom scene. If you are interested in attending this event, please email Erica Gbur at egbur@iu.edu with the subject line: Netflix Party. A link to the event will be sent 15 minutes before the screening. Access to a Netflix account and the Google Chrome extension will be needed. Discussion to follow; for law students only. 7:00 p.m.
Friday
Indiana State Bar Association Wellness Program
This year, CSO is partnering with the Indiana State Bar Association for a monthly series relating to success in the legal profession. Please join us via Zoom to connect with practicing attorneys who will share their wisdom. This special session designed for law students will focus on tips and strategies for reframing your attitude—a key ingredient in the recipe for resilience! Our panelists will cover how to flip the script of negative self-talk, embrace gratitude, and find joy in even the most difficult situations.RSVP via CareerNet. Noon-1:00 p.m.
Saturday
Zoom Q&A Session Regarding Spring Externships
Join CSO and Professor Van der Cruysse, faculty supervisor for judicial externships, for a Q&A session regarding spring externships for credit. Prior to the Q&A, please view Dean McFadden and Professor Van der Cruysse’s presentation on spring externships, available on the Career Resources Canvas page. RSVP on CareerNet. 9:00-10:00 a.m.
Judicial Clerkships: All you need to know about applying — timeline, application materials, and letters of recommendation
Prof. Van der Cruysse, Indiana Law alumna Carrie Wheatley, '20, and 3Ls Jocelyn Porter and Charles Rice will host a live conversation and Q&A session based on the pre-recorded judicial clerkship workshop posted at the Career Resources Canvas page. Please watch the workshop recording first and RSVP on CareerNet, where you will find the Zoomlink to this event, the meeting ID, and the password. We look forward to a lively conversation! 11:00 a.m.-noon.
Announcements
Law Student Emergency Relief Program
The Law School has some funding available to assist students in emergency situations who are in financial distress or facing financial hardship. One such resource is The Fromm Emergency Fund—named after the late Dean of Students Len Fromm and established through alumni generosity. This past spring, AccessLex Institute provided additional emergency funding to assist with hardship arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Our emergency funds provide limited financial assistance to law students who are unable to meet immediate, essential expenses because of temporary hardship related to emergency situations. We encourage students to ask for what they need, understanding that our ability to meet students' needs depends on everyone asking only for what they need.
If you are experiencing financial hardship, you can contact Mr. Leopold at pleopold@indiana.edu to request an application for assistance. Typical expenses covered include costs related to serious illness in the immediate family; essential academic expenses and essential living expenses; medications or other health-related costs; or sudden, unexpected transportation (e.g., emergency airfare). Funding will be determined based on need. Existing financial aid is considered in determining any award amount, and an unwillingness to take out loans may not constitute an emergency. While we attempt to support as many students as possible with emergency funding, we are not able to grant every request or, in some cases, offer the full amount requested.
Student Organization Leaders Canvas Page
Are you in a leadership position for one of the Law School's student organizations, but don’t have access to the “Student Organization Leaders” Canvas page? Email Director Beck (katbeck@indiana.edu) so she can give you access to resources that will help you succeed in your role.
Wednesday Walkers
Thanks to all who joined for our first virtual Wednesday Walkers last week. Tie up your shoelaces and get outside for a stroll this Wednesday, and be sure to take a photo of your walk and tag the law school. One lucky walker will win a digital gift card!
International Tuesdays
Mark your calendars! Two upcoming info sessions will share information about international opportunities for law students. Check the law school calendar for zoom registration links.
Tuesday 9/29 at 5pm: Stewart Fellows Information Session
Tuesday 10/6 at 5pm: International Dual Degree Programs Information Session
One School | One Book: The New Jim Crow
WEEK 2
Quotes
“Any candid observer of American racial history must acknowledge that racism is highly adaptable.” p.26
“Proponents of racial hierarchy found they could install a new racial caste system without violating the law or the new limits of acceptable political discourse by demanding ‘law and order’ rather than ‘segregation forever.’” p. 50
Summary of the first half of Chapter 1, pp. 25-50
In the first half of Chapter 1, Prof. Alexander opens with the idea that subjugation of Blacks, in whatever form it has taken, has been done to create a lowest, racialized caste, thereby ensuring the continuation of White privilege. Looking back across the history of the US, we can see that the systems of racial subjugation—the “rules of the game”—change over time, but the racial hierarchy is always preserved. Alexander also asserts that each iteration of the American caste system has been less complete and less capable of total control than the one before, but also more resilient and shielded from challenge because the racism at its root is better disguised.
The discussion that follows reviews the history of the racial caste system in the colonies and the United States, beginning with the indentured servitude of early Black arrivals and the implementation of racialized slavery to fulfill labor demands. Prof. Alexander explains how racialized slavery was used by the wealthy to drive a wedge between Black and poor Whites, who might otherwise have been mutually sympathetic and share a desire to revolt against the wealthier classes. In short, racialized slavery gave poor Whites feelings of superiority over Blacks, and poor Whites became deeply invested in these feelings.
Throughout the centuries of slavery, the ideology of racial hierarchy became increasingly ingrained, to the point of fervor. When slavery ended, the racist ideology did not. The Southern states were economically, politically, and socially decimated, and the establishment of a new racial caste system became a “consuming passion” of Whites who mourned the loss of privilege and feared Black insurrection. The success of Blacks during Reconstruction undermined the racial caste system, and when Reconstruction fell apart thanks to abandonment by the North, Southern Whites took back full control of the social, economic, and political structure and began to pass segregation laws. In the late 1800s, an agricultural and economic depression gave rise to a populist political movement that reunited poor Whites and Blacks. In response, Southern conservatives used segregation laws—the framework of the new racial caste system—as a new wedge between Whites and Blacks, and Jim Crow grew even harsher and more deeply entrenched.
Jim Crow was weakened by World War II thanks to the cognitive dissonance created by Black men serving in the military but having no rights at home and by the comparison of American treatment of Blacks to Nazi treatment of Jews. Americans, at least in the North, were growing increasingly uncomfortable with the racial caste system of the day. The Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education brought federal control into the picture, ending the ability of the states to create their own racial caste system. With the Civil Rights Movement and its many achievements, Jim Crow crumbled. But, Alexander notes, even during the Civil Rights Movement, the groundwork was being laid for the next iteration of America’s racial caste system with the new language of “law and order.”
Question to ponder
What do you think of Prof. Alexander’s assertion that each iteration of the racial caste system in America is more resilient to challenge than the system before? How/why is mass incarceration more resilient to challenge than its predecessors?
Please read the remainder of chapter 1, pp. 50-73.
Further reading
Vesla M. Weaver, Frontlash: Race and the Development of Punitive Crime Policy, 21 STUDIES AM. POL. DEV. 230 (2007).
Faculty and Staff News
Prof. Sarah Jane Hughes's essay entitled, Do Blockchain Technologies Make Us Safer? Do Cryptocurrencies Necessarily Make Us Less Safe? will appear in the forthcoming issue of the Texas International Law Journal , at 55 Tex. I.L.J. 353 (forthcoming September 2020).
This summer, Prof. Leandra Lederman participated in the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) meeting, which was held virtually via Zoom. On August 3, 2020, she participated in a SEALS panel on “Publishing With Law Reviews.” On August, 4, in SEALS' Tax Policy Discussion Group, she presented an early-stage project on tax valuation. Also this summer, Professor Lederman co-hosted the Indiana/Leeds Summer Tax Workshop Series via Zoom, with Prof. Leopoldo Parada of the University of Leeds. This series of 13 talks included speakers selected from a Call for Papers, along with a few invited speakers. The talks, most of which focused on aspects of international tax, attracted an average of approximately 100 attendees per session, including faculty, tax practitioners, and students from all over the world. Videos of the introductory remarks and speakers' scripted remarks are available on the Law School's YouTube channel at www.tinyurl.com/IndianaLeeds.
Indiana Law in the Media
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About ILA
An online form is available to plan and schedule meetings. Please use this form to request a room, notify Indiana Law Annotated, and send other information about your event. You will receive confirmation that your room has been reserved after your request has been processed. When filling out your event description, please provide all information possible, especially if you are requesting that the event be publicized.
Indiana Law Annotated is published every Sunday while school is in session with news about the coming week. Submit information and articles for ILA to ila@indiana.edu by Thursday at noon for inclusion in Sunday's edition. Length of submission is limited to 150 words, unless otherwise approved. Entries may be edited to ensure consistent presentation. If you have questions about an item appearing in the ILA, please contact Ken Turchi (kturchi@indiana.edu).