SALT Welcomes New Board of Governors in January

Thank you to all of the SALT members who voted by proxy or who attended the annual membership meeting in Denver.  We welcome our new members to the SALT board of governors who will take their seats at the January 8, 2011 meeting: Kathleen Bergin, Marjorie Cohn, Larry Levine, Hope Lewis, Lisa Pruitt, and Mark Sidel, from the board-endorsed slate.  In addition, pursuant to SALT bylaws, the board voted to appoint Solangel Maldonado to the SALT board.  SALT also congratulates our returning board members: Doug Colbert, Andi Curcio, Patti Falk, Joan Howarth, Peter Joy, Bob Lancaster, Adele Morrison, and Camille Nelson.

New Candidates:

Kathleen A. Bergin, South Texas College of Law

I am honored to have been nominated for a position on the SALT Board of Governors. I     have taught Constitutional Law and related courses for the past 6 years, and am a     committed champion of progressive causes that align with SALT’s overall mission. To provide just a few examples, I was actively involved in efforts at our campus to     expand     health care benefits to same-sex couples, and have advocated for fair and non-discriminatory treatment of pro-choice and religious-based student organizations. Outside of the law school, I have worked to combat censorship at the local library and in the public schools.

Moreover, I have been heavily involved in monitoring human rights abuses following catastrophic events, including the 2005 levee breach in New Orleans and the recent earthquake in Port au Prince, Haiti. In addition to participating in the distribution of humanitarian aid, I have exposed government negligence in facilities used to shelter evacuees, and have worked along-side Gulf Coast advocates to fight against disenfranchisement, unjust evictions, and exploitive employment conditions. I will be in Haiti this semester to assess legal needs and to provide assistance to local attorneys involved in the reconstruction process.

Thank you for the invitation to apply for this position. I look forward to what I am     confident will be a rewarding and fruitful relationship.

Marjorie Cohn, Thomas Jefferson School of Law

(www.marjoriecohn.com)
(Professor Cohn is immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild.)

I have been privileged to serve on SALT’s Human Rights Committee (formerly the Post-9/11 Peace Committee) for the past few years. Through that work and SALT events at AALS, I have come to know and admire my kindred spirits in SALT. My teaching and scholarly work as well as my prior practice as a criminal defense attorney have centered around human rights, civil liberties, and justice issues. Now that my 3-year term as president of the National Lawyers Guild has expired, I hope to become even more involved in the critical work of SALT. Nineteen years of teaching at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and 15 years of experience on the Guild’s National Executive Committee will help me to be an effective member of the SALT board.

Lawrence (Larry) Levine, University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law

Thank you for considering me for a position on the SALT Board of Governors.  As a lifetime member of SALT, I feel passionately about the organization’s mission.  Since entering teaching in 1985, I have been involved in efforts to diversify the profession.  At McGeorge, I have been the faculty advisor to the Lambda Law Students and to BLSA, and received the Faculty Diversity Award last year.  I have also worked hard to promote equal rights for the LGBT community in various capacities:  as a founding member of California State Bar’s Committee on Sexual Orientation Discrimination; as Chair of the Law School Admission Council’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Issues Subcommittee; as a founder of Sacramento Lawyers for the Equality of Gays and Lesbians (SacLEGAL); and as a member of SALT’s LGBT subcommittee, to name a few.

And I also had the honor of having beloved SALT member Trina Grillo as my Constitutional Law professor!  I hope to have the chance to assist SALT with its important work through a position on the Board of Governors.
 

Hope Lewis, Northeastern University School of Law

It is an honor to be considered for nomination to the SALT Board of Governors.  These are challenging times for the legal academy and for our students.  As a life member of SALT, I would like to join the Board to support the organization’s consistent and longstanding commitment to social justice in legal education.  SALT has been a leading voice in support of diversity and affirmative action in law school admissions as well as faculty/administrative hiring, promotion, and retention.  The Board and membership has fought for goals I care passionately about and have worked to promote throughout my legal career such as human rights and civil liberties.  Among key areas of continuing concern are the preparation, admission, and retention of students of color and students with disabilities.  I would also like to support efforts to increase access to international social justice work for students of color and working-class students.
 

Lisa Pruitt, University of California, Davis School of Law

I recently re-joined SALT—this time as a life member—having been a member for a few years a decade ago, when I first became a professor.  I am motivated to make a renewed investment in SALT, including serving on the Board of Governors, based on the organization’s engagement with a range of issues about which I care deeply, including access to higher education.  My own scholarship informs and fuels my wish to serve on the SALT Board of Governors.  I write about rural people and places, with a focus on rural disadvantage.  Thus, my scholarly work is implicitly—and often explicitly—about socioeconomic class, in relation to geography.  

Mark Sidel, University of Iowa School of Law

I'm honored to be nominated for the SALT board.  I'm interested in assisting particularly with the international, nonprofit, and philanthropic elements of SALT's work on social and economic justice, including work with other nonprofit and advocacy organizations, resource development and work with foundations, and SALT's work on international law issues, teaching and research.  My own work currently focuses on issues of the rule of law in the transitional socialist countries, particularly China and Vietnam; on international and domestic aspects of nonprofit and philanthropic organizations; and on issues in human trafficking law and policy in the United States.  I have worked closely with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on rule of law issues in Vietnam, with the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) on the development of civil society law in China, and with a range of other organizations.  Before moving to academic life I served for a number of years with the Ford Foundation in Beijing, Hanoi, Bangkok and New Delhi, working on programs to promote justice, the role of civil society, and participatory governance.

Returning SALT Board Members:

Doug Colbert, University of Maryland

I am thrilled to be re-nominated to serve on the SALT Board of Directors.  I consider service one of the high honors and privileges of being a member of the academy.   I am particularly looking forward to serving a second term to continue the work as co-chair (with Camille Nelson) of the Access to Justice Committee.  Approved at the AALS Board meeting this past January, the Access to Justice Committee promises to bring life and meaning to the first words of the Preamble to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, when it refers to every lawyer as a “public citizen having a special responsibility to the quality of justice.”  If I am fortunate to be re-elected, I intend to devote considerable time and effort toward instilling the public-citizen concept within the law school curricula and to the bar fulfilling its pro bono, public service duty to communities in need.

Andrea Curcio, Georgia State University

I would like to continue as a SALT Board member because SALT is an organization of incredibly talented people who “walk the walk” when it comes to social justice work.  In my last term, I chaired the Issues in Legal Education Committee.  Guided by SALT’s mission of improving legal education, developing students’ sense of social justice and creating a more diverse and inclusive bench and bar, I have had the chance to work with some of the best and brightest on numerous important legal education issues.  Additionally, the work of other SALT members has helped me learn a tremendous amount about a wide spectrum of human rights and other social justice issues.  It has been an honor and a pleasure to be able to work in the company of some of the smartest and most committed legal academics in the country, all of whom have a shared goal of creating a more socially just and equitable society.  I would appreciate the opportunity to continue working on the SALT Board for another term.

Patricia Falk, Cleveland-Marshall

I am honored to be renominated to the Society of American Law Teacher’s Board of Governors.  My teaching career of 19 years at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law has been characterized by a struggle in my teaching, scholarship, and service to advance the causes of equality and justice. One of my primary scholarship areas is LGBT equality, particularly in the context of family law issues, relying upon empirical tools to advance arguments for legal and social equality.  Other areas of my scholarship include criminal law defenses based upon social deprivation, poverty, and racism, and, most recently, the continuing revision of rape law to effectuate and advance long-standing feminist reforms.  In teaching, I have attempted to transcend the law school paradigm by teaching interdisciplinary courses that explore the possibilities of using social science as an instrument of social and legal change and by instituting a team-taught course that directly grapples with the ways that the criminal justice system disadvantages women as victims, defendants, and prisoners.

As a SALT Board member, I chaired the organizing committee for Teaching for Social Change:  2008 SALT Teaching Conference, University of California-Berkeley School of Law (March 14-15, 2008), I co-chaired the organizing committee for Academic Freedom and Teaching Activism in the Post 9/11 World:  2006 SALT Teaching Conference, Suffolk University Law School (September 8-9, 2006), and I was a member of the committee that organized Class in the Classroom:  2004 SALT Teaching Conference, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law (October 2004).  At Cleveland-Marshall, I have focused attention on racial, gender, economic, and political issues in the criminal justice system by playing a principal organizing role in a series called the Criminal Justice Forum over the last eleven years.  I have also helped to organize a conference on Law and Sexuality and one on the Reliability of Jury Verdicts.  Broadly, my service to the law school and university concerns working toward the goals of inclusion and excellence.
  

Joan Howarth, Michigan State University

Thank you for considering me as a candidate for reelection to the SALT Board.  I am currently the dean at Michigan State University College of Law, and was formerly on the faculty at Boyd School of Law, UNLV, and before that Golden Gate University.  As my law school homes have changed, my work with SALT has continued.  As a SALT Board member I have tried to contribute both substantively, especially on legal education and LGBT issues, and organizationally, including having chaired the Nominations Committee for several years and serving on the Executive Committee.  SALT's mission, accomplishments, and future directions are important to me, and I am grateful for an opportunity to continue to serve. 

Peter Joy, Washington University, St. Louis

I am very grateful to be considered for re-election to the SALT Board.  Prior to joining the SALT Board, I had been a member of SALT for several years and had the privilege to work on some SALT projects or jointly with SALT as a liaison from CLEA.  Since joining the Board, I appreciate even more SALT’s sustained efforts around justice issues, academic freedom, and diversity in the legal profession and law schools.  During this first term on the Board, I have been involved in issues involving legal education as well as SALT’s work against state anti-diversity initiatives.  If re-elected, I hope to continue and expand SALT’s work in these areas, and to undertake new initiatives supporting the interests of SALT members.  I would also like to explore how the SALT Board could involve more members in shaping the agenda and work of SALT.

Thank you for considering my candidacy.

Robert Lancaster, Louisiana State

I seek re-election to the SALT Board of Governors.  I am deeply committed to the work of SALT and feel privileged to be a part of such an energetic, progressive group of law teachers working for social justice and diversity in legal education and the legal profession.  I have served as Secretary of the Board of Governors for three years and will gladly continue in that capacity.  I have also served on several SALT committees over the years including the Social Justice Retreats Committee, the Annual Dinner Committee, and the Cover Workshop Committee.  I would be honored to continue to serve on the Board of this extraordinary and active organization.

Adele Morrison, Wayne State

I am running for my third term as a SALT Board member.  In this term my primary focus will be on membership and the SALT REPs program.  Increasing the number of paid members is vital to the continuation of SALT’s work.  I believe that membership should be the number one concern of all Board members and a task on which we all should be working, and hope the work of the membership committee, on which I currently serve, can instill this into all of us.   It is also my position that, along with the co-presidents and executive director, the membership committee should provide a comprehensive plan to grow our numbers and our revenue and increase member engagement, as well as to expand the number of REPs and ensure their active involvement in SALT’s work. 

I believe one reason I have managed to have some level of success in the legal academy, including attaining tenure in 2007, is because of SALT and the mentorship, and guidance I have received from its members.  I attribute the number of opportunities for visiting positions and my recent lateral move from Northern Illinois University to Wayne State, to connections I have made through SALT and our sister organizations and communities.   My involvement with SALT has been a lifeline and being a board member is my way of giving back to an organization that has been instrumental in my career.  SALT has been one of few places where I get to work with like-minded people on important issues and I am proud of SALTs mission and the work we do as well as the people who do that work.   

As of this school year I have been a member of SALT for 12 years. I joined when I was a Remington-Hastie Fellow at the University of Wisconsin and have remained a member throughout my soon to be ten years as a tenure-track professor.  As noted above, 2009-2010 is my first year on the Wayne State University faculty.  This year I am teaching criminal law, family law and child, family and the state.  My teaching and research areas are race, gender, class, sexual orientation and culture issues in the areas of criminal law, family law, professional responsibility, poverty law, sexuality and the law and domestic violence. 
 

Camille Nelson, Suffolk

It has been a pleasure and privilege to be a part of the Society of American Law Teachers over the last three years.  Not only have I learned a great deal but I feel that I have been a part of an organization that "walks the talk."  As a professor engaged in the teaching of criminal law, criminal procedure, legal professions, transnational law and critical race theory, I have been particularly pleased with SALT's involvement in issues of social justice and its insistence on pressing for equality internationally in intersectional ways. Over the last few years I have twice organized the Cover workshop at the AALS annual conference, co-chaired the SALT Teaching conference, and been a part of the affirmative action and pipeline project committees as well as assisting in the formation of the Access to Justice Committee. This year I move into a new role as Dean and I look forward to continuing to contribute to SALT’s work in whatever way I can. Thank you for the opportunity to work with such a fine organization and I am most appreciative of your consideration.