Author Archives: Keith Bybee

Law, Politics, and the Media Informational Meeting

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Law, Politics, and the Media . . . and pizza!

The American judicial system today operates in a complex environment of legal principle, political pressure and media coverage. LAW 839/PSC 700/NEW 500: Law, Politics and the Media introduces students to the court system and its environment as a single, integrated subject of study. The course is sponsored by the Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media and co-taught by faculty drawn from law, journalism and political science. The course also features dynamic lectures by prominent practitioners from the bench, the bar, media, and the world of policymaking.

Interested? Join us on Thursday, October 30, at 12:00pm in Dineen Hall’s MacNaughton Collaboratory for an informational meeting. Law, Politics and the Media faculty will be there to answer any questions you may have about the course, and pizza will be served.

Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice

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“Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice”
Joan Biskupic, Legal Affairs Editor, Reuters

Date: Wednesday, 9/24
Time: 12:00pm-­‐12:50pm
Place: Gray Ceremonial Courtroom – Room 020, Dineen Hall, Syracuse University College of Law

It was little surprise in 2009 that President Barack Obama nominated a Hispanic judge to replace retiring justice David Souter.  The fact that there had never been a nominee to the nation’s highest court from the nation’s fastest growing minority had been long apparent. So the time was ripe—but why was it Sonia Sotomayor?  In Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice, veteran journalist Joan Biskupic answers that question. This is the story of how two forces providentially merged—the large ambitions of a talented Puerto Rican girl raised in the projects of the Bronx, and the increasing political presence of Hispanics, from California to Texas, from Florida to the Northeast—for a historic appointment. And this is not just a tale about breaking barriers as a Puerto Rican. It’s about breaking barriers as a justice.
Biskupic_Sotomayor

Conversation from the Bench

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A panel discussion with four Circuit Court Judges about the state of judicial independence and judicial legitimacy in the current age of political polarization and partisan gridlock.

Participants:
Hon. Carolyn Dineen King
Hon. Theodore A. McKee
Hon. Rosemary S. Pooler
Hon. Thomas M. Reavley

Moderator:
Professor Keith J. Bybee,
Paul E. and Hon. Joanne F. Alper ’72
Judiciary Studies Professor and Director, IJPM

When: September 12, 11:00am-12:00pm
Where: Melanie Gray Ceremonial Courtroom, Syracuse University College of Law

This event is part of the opening celebration of Dineen Hall.

Constitutionalism and the Foundations of the Security State

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Wednesday, April 16, 2014
11:45AM – 12:50PM
Room 201
Syracuse University College of Law
 
Cornell’s Aziz Rana highlights how discourses of security and constitutional commitment historically emerged in tandem and have had the effect of reinforcing, not checking, one another.
 
CO-SPONSORS: Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, & the Media; Sawyer Law & Politics Program; & the Department of Political Science, Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs.
 
For more information on this event please contact Martin Walls at mwalls@syr.edu

Panel on the Press and the U.S. Supreme Court

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American Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting
Friday, January 3, 2014, 1:30p.m-3:15 p.m.
Hilton New York Midtown

Fifty years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided the landmark case of New York Times v. Sullivan, it signaled what many now see as a high-water mark in the protection of and appreciation for the role of a free press in our democracy.   In the subsequent five decades, both the press and the Supreme Court have experienced significant change, and each has faced criticism for its treatment of the other.

This panel will investigate the complex dynamic between the U.S. Supreme Court and the media that reports on its work, considering trends in the Court’s depictions of the media and trends in the media’s depiction of the Court.

Media scholars and members of the U.S. Supreme Court press corps will discuss the Supreme Court’s apparently declining perceptions of the press in its opinions and will compare and contrast the individual Justices’ views on the media.  They will question the strengths and limitations of the Court’s current policies regarding the press; consider the as-yet rejected proposals to introduce cameras or social media in the courtroom; and investigate ways that the media could improve its coverage of the Court and enhance public knowledge of the institution and its work.

Moderator:
RonNell Andersen Jones, Brigham Young University, J. Reuben Clark Law School

Speakers:
Keith J. Bybee, Syracuse University College of Law
Leslie Kendrick, University of Virginia School of Law
Mr. Adam Liptak, New York Times
Ms. Dahlia Lithwick, Slate Magazine
Mr. Anthony E. Mauro, National Law Journal

Rod Smolla on Massive Online Leaks

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“Massive Online Leaks: Prosecuting and Defending Traffickers of
National Security Secrets”

Rod Smolla

Date: Nov. 21, 2013
Time: 12:00pm-1:00pm
Place: Syracuse University College of Law, Room 104.

Rod Smolla is a visiting professor at Duke Law, former President of Furman University in Greenville, SC, and former Dean and Roy L. Steinheimer Professor of Law at Washington and Lee School of Law.  He is the author of The Constitution Goes to College (2011).

This lecture is presented by the Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media; the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism; and the Peter and Sharon Murphy Kissel Fund for the Study of Civil Liberties.