Join us for the SALT Annual Awards Celebration!
Friday evening, January 5, 2018
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At its upcoming Annual Awards Celebration to be held on January 5, 2018, in San Diego, SALT will honor two champions of justice, diversity and teaching excellence. Professor Jeffrey Selbin of Berkeley Law will receive the 2018 SALT Great Teacher Award. Professor Robert S. Chang and the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality will receive the 2018 M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award (details below).
We are revamping the SALT Annual Dinner to increase interaction and fun! The 2018 SALT Annual Awards Celebration will feature presentations by the Great Teacher and M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights awardees along with a gala reception providing an opportunity to interact with awardees, greet long-time and new SALT friends, usher in new Co-Presidents Matthew Charity and Davida Finger, and as always enjoy marvelous food and drink. The celebration will include a special memorial tribute to SALT founder Norman Dorsen.
The SALT 2018 Great Teacher Award recognizes Professor Jeffrey Selbin of Berkeley Law. Professor Selbin exemplifies the best of SALT’s mission to seek excellence in legal education and elevate the fight for social justice. His dedication to combatting poverty and elevating vulnerable communities is infectious and so deeply rooted that he constantly inspires everyone with whom he interacts—students, faculty, community members—to feel compelled to act in support of social change. Professor Selbin brings to the classroom his belief that lawyers must play a vital role in returning power to vulnerable groups. His core pedagogical focus is for his students to embrace the notion that public service is core to the legal profession. Indeed, Professor Selbin’s teaching career demonstrates that instilling the desire and capability to provide public service must be a fundamental charge of legal academia. He teaches—through his example and his profound dedication to public service—that law schools must be a place where we inspire and empower warriors to fight for social justice.
The SALT 2018 M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award recognizes Professor Robert S. Chang and the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle U School of Law. Under Professor Chang’s visionary leadership, the Korematsu Center pursues social justice through litigation, education, scholarship, and other forms of advocacy. In 2016, the Center organized numerous scholars and legal organizations to sign on to its amicus brief in People v. Bridgeforth, where the New York Court of Appeals ruled that skin color discrimination is cognizable for Batson challenges to juror exclusion. Most recently, the Korematsu Center successfully represented the Plaintiffs in Gonzales v. Douglas, which held that Arizona’s ban on ethnic studies courses was unconstitutional. The Center has also taken on a range of other issues, including the rights of criminal defendants, racially disparaging trademarks, and the Trump Administration’s travel ban. Additionally, the Korematsu Center is also helping to train the next generation of social justice lawyers. It sponsors the Civil Rights and Amicus Clinic at Seattle University School of Law, and it has also funded teaching fellowships for aspiring law professors interested in civil and human rights. Under Professor Chang’s guidance, all of the Center’s initiatives have worked together uniquely and synergistically to promote SALT’s mission.