News Archive
Negotiating the New Political and Racial Environment, Oct. 13
October 05, 2009
DETROIT (Oct. 2, 2009) – Wayne State University Law School and the Keith Center for Civil Rights are pleased to announce a public lecture by john a. powell, Damon J. Keith Distinguished Visiting Professor. “Negotiating the New Political and Racial Environment” will begin at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 13, in the Spencer M. Partrich Auditorium. A reception will follow.
“The Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights will make Wayne Law a leading forum for the study and advocacy of civil rights and social justice,” stated Professor Peter Hammer, director of the new Keith Center. “Judge Keith has spent his entire life fighting for justice and opportunity. We are honored to have Professor powell as the Keith Center’s first Distinguished Visiting Professor. Professor powell’s work at the Kirwan Institute embodies some of the most sophisticated and important analysis of race, law and politics being done anywhere in the country. This public lecture presents a unique learning opportunity for all of the citizens of Detroit.”
Professor powell is on campus this semester teaching a seminar in The History and Culture of Race and Law, which explores the history and culture of race in American society and how the American legal system has responded to issues of race. The seminar addresses topics including Race and the State; The Civil War and Reconstruction; Jim Crow, Brown v. Board of Education, and the Rise of Colorblindness; and Modern Developments in Law and Science.
Professor powell is executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University and holds the Gregory H. Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties at the university’s Michael E. Moritz College of Law. Previously, he founded and directed the Institute on Race and Poverty at the
He has written extensively on a number of issues including structural racialization, racial justice and regionalism, concentrated poverty and urban sprawl, opportunity based housing, voting rights, affirmative action in the
Professor powell earned a J.D. from the
The lecture is free and open to the public. Parking is available for $3.50 in parking structure #1 across from the
The Hon. Damon J. Keith was appointed to serve as a United States Court of Appeals Judge for the Sixth Circuit in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter. Prior to his appointment to the Court of Appeals, he was a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan from 1967 to 1977, where he served as Chief Judge from 1975 until he was elevated to the Court of Appeals.
As a member of the federal bench, Judge Keith has consistently been a defender of the constitutional and civil rights of all people. He presided over many landmark cases, most notably United States v. Sinclair, which is referred to as the Keith Decision. In that decision, Keith ruled that President Nixon and the federal government were prohibited from engaging in warrantless wiretapping because it violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed Keith’s decision.
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