Vote in Election of 2018 Board of Governors Nominees

 

SALT is proud to announce the slate of nominees for election or re-election to the SALT Board of Governors for three-year terms beginning January 1, 2018.  The nominees will be presented  for consideration as a slate at the SALT Annual Member Meeting, to be held at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 11, in connection with the ClassCrits X Conference at Tulane University Law School, 6329 Freret St, New Orleans, Louisiana. SALT members are encouraged to attend the meeting in person or to vote by proxy by submitting an online proxy form.

You must be a member in good standing of SALT at the time of the meeting or at the time you submit a proxy.  If you are unsure of your membership status, please send an email to info@saltlaw.org including your name and institution so that we may check your status.  If you are not currently a member or your membership has lapsed because you have not paid dues in the past year, please join or renew to be eligible to vote or submit a proxy.

Nominees to the 2018 Board of Governors

Emily Benfer, Clinical Professor, Formerly of Loyola Chicago

Thank you for the opportunity to express my enthusiastic interest in serving on the SALT Board of Governors for a third term. I am an avid supporter and member of SALT because SALT 1) constantly challenges me and other members of the academic community to teach as instruments of social justice; 2) actively, effectively, and reliably responds to injustice in the legal community and society; and 3) is made up of committed, passionate, exceptional leaders who inspire me on a daily basis.

I have dedicated my career to advancing SALT’s values of social justice, equality and diversity, and the mentoring and teaching of socially responsible attorneys and professionals. Since 2010, I have served as a Clinical Professor of Law and the founding director of the Health Justice Project at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Stritch School of Medicine. In this role, I have trained students of law, public health, social work, and medicine to advocate side by side with the local and national advocacy communities in order to advance social justice for marginalized and impoverished communities. It has been a privilege to bring this collaborative approach to the SALT board as the past Chair of the Membership Committee, Nominations Committee, and Norman Amaker Public Interest Law Retreat. I look forward to building on this work and welcome the challenge of advancing SALT’s goals during a time when their realization is of paramount importance, perhaps more than ever.

Olympia Duhart, Director of Legal Research and Writing Program and Professor of Law, Nova Southeastern University

SALT has been a central part of my experience as a law teacher. In SALT, I found a community of academic activists. In these challenging times, it is more important than ever for us to continue the hard and important work of advancing the rule of law. SALT is essential to shaping policy, improving legal education, supporting the community and fighting to make the legal profession more inclusive.

During my past term on the SALT Board of Governors, I joined these efforts in many ways: I helped draft an amicus brief in Fisher v. University of Texas; planned BA to JD Pipeline events around the country to help historically marginalized people find a path to law school; organized a Breaking-In Program for underrepresented people to join the legal academy; and organized community workshops on student activism and police accountability in communities of color. But I was most privileged to serve with Professor Ruben Garcia as Co-President of SALT, a post I held from 2014 to 2016. It was an honor to work with people committed to transformative law teaching and social justice. We made great strides, but there is still so much work to do. The core values advanced at SALT – teaching excellence, social justice and diversity – mirror my own. So it is hard to imagine my life in the academy without my SALT family. I look forward to another term on the board and continuing our work.

Alexi Freeman, Associate Professor of the Practice and Director of Externships & Public Interest Initiatives, University of Denver

I am currently Associate Professor of the Practice and Director of Externships & Public Interest Initiatives at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. I teach a range of social justice oriented courses and engage in a number of out of class efforts aimed at growing the number of students interested in pursuing social change. I am a racial justice movement lawyer at heart and do everything I can to challenge traditional notions of hierarchy and power dynamics within society, the practice of law, and legal education.

For the past three years, I have been honored to serve on SALT’s board of governors and am excited to seek re-election. During my tenure with SALT, my efforts have been focused namely in two areas: the access to justice committee and the SSAC, the pilot SALT Student Advisory Council. I look forward to continuing to contribute in these arenas and specifically find ways to connect SALT-Y students with SALT to grow our influence and spread a social justice vision for legal education.

In addition, I am a long-term contract faculty member with governing rights. The status of externship faculty across the country ranges greatly and a number of different challenges exist. Contract faculty are often underrepresented in national organizations, and I am eager to serve as a voice for such clinicians.

Steve Friedland, Associate Dean for Innovations in Engaged Learning in the Law, Professor of Law and Senior Scholar, Elon University

SALT is needed now more than ever. With the identity and focus of many law schools subject to increasing volatility and uncertainty, how legal education defines itself in the coming decade has become increasingly important.

I have become more involved in SALT in recent years and wish to step up my service. I have been a member of the SALT Junior Teaching Award Committee the past two years. I participated in the fall 2016 SALT conference on teaching in Chicago. I assisted with the SALT pipeline program at Elon Law School during the past two years, including teaching in it. In addition, I have become passionate about developing programs for first generation professionals, a group that faces may unseen headwinds in their education and careers. I twice sponsored faculty discussion groups on this topic at the SEALS conference, spoke at the 2016 annual LSAC conference on the subject, and founded a First Gen Professionals Association at Elon Law School. This group deserves more attention and integration into the fabric of legal education. We are lucky to have the opportunity to impact our students and the community through our teaching, but that teaching is often undervalued. Over time, I have become much more interested in promoting a learning-centered education that better serves the whole class, and not just a few. Having taught legal writing, externships and substantive law courses, I have seen various dimensions of the process and have experimented with multiple delivery methods, from design thinking to brain science techniques. These alternatives connect differing forms of teaching with social justice and other core values of SALT.

For all of the above reasons, it would be a privilege to serve SALT as a member of its Board of Governors.

Catherine Grosso, Associate Professor of Law, Michigan State University

A bit of very good luck made me a law teacher. A longstanding SALT member reviewed my quirky resume and passed it on to her dean. To me, she said “SALT is the organization for you.” SALT remains the community of legal academics among whom I feel most at home. SALT’s commitment to justice within the legal community and beyond nurtures me. SALT provides a welcome respite from the hierarchy and patriarchy that dominate the academy. It also plays an essential role in mentoring diverse leaders and celebrating our heroes.

Now more than ever, we must redouble efforts to expand the profession and access to law. For example, we must explicate the limits of admissions benchmarks. While LSAT may predict the success of strong students, it cannot explain why so many “at risk” students far outperform their numbers. It cannot predict their future success as lawyers in their communities. We must not to lose these students in this time of shrinking admissions. SALT’s pedagogical initiatives provide key support to this effort.

I seek a leadership role in order to give back to the organization and support progressive values in legal education. I look forward to an opportunity to learn from other members of the SALT community. Involvement in the board is a chance to serve and to develop my own thinking about the most challenging issues facing legal education today. I hope to become a more engaged and thoughtful member of our community through involvement in the SALT board.

Joan Howarth, Dean Emerita and Professor of Law, Michigan State University, Visiting Professor, UNLV

To maximize our strength, progressive law professors need a community and a voice, and SALT provides both. SALT focuses its progressive activism outward, to the big justice issues of the world; and inward, within our own professional home, legal education. Since its founding, SALT has helped to transform the legal academy by supporting women, members of the LGBT communities, and people of color to become participants and then leaders. SALT conferences have inspired the best teaching of thousands of us, including me. I am a grateful beneficiary of SALT’s efforts.

Before law teaching I practiced as a public defender and ACLU attorney. I have been on the faculties at Golden Gate, UNLV, and Michigan State, where I served as dean for eight years. I have taught as a visiting professor at UC Hastings, UC Davis, and UC Berkeley, and now back at UNLV. My scholarly interests include gender, sexuality, and capital punishment; LGBT legal history; and, most recently, attorney licensing. I have worked on various SALT projects, including working for LGBT justice, defending academic freedom, and challenging the exclusionary bar exam. [SALT has been beating its head against the bar exam wall for twenty years, but we are finally seeing signs of possible progress.] When I previously served on the SALT board, from about 1998 to 2014, I took on many organizational leadership roles, including chairing lots of committees. I am pleased and honored to be nominated to return.

Margo Lindauer, Associate Teaching Professor, Northeastern University

I am honored to present this statement of interest to be considered as a member of the Society of American Law Teachers’ Board of Governors for the 2017-2018 year. I am wholly committed to SALT’s commitment to advancing teaching excellence, social justice and diversity. I would be honored to be part of a broader community (outside of my own law school) of progressive law teachers, law school administrators, librarians, academic support experts, students and affiliates to further the conversation and the work that SALT is doing. As a current member of SALT and its Access to Justice Committee, I have been exposed and worked on some of SALT’s initiatives. I would be thrilled to expand my knowledge, commitment and dedicate my time to working more on a broader range of SALT’s identified goals.

I currently direct the Domestic Violence Institute at Northeastern University School of Law and hold a joint appointment as an Associate Teaching Professor with the Law School and Bouve College of Health Sciences. In my capacity as a law professor, I teach a six credit Domestic Violence Clinic, a Spanish for Lawyers Course and oversee the operation of the Institute which in addition to the clinic supports a first year volunteer program as well as multiple Independent Studies and Research opportunities. My goal is to help students learn how to have empathy, be client-centered, be holistic and collaborative in their approach, be culturally sensitive and understand and identify the biases they bring to their advocacy work all while effectively representing their clients’ interests.

I am interested and committed to being part of the national conversations about how we recruit and train the next generation of lawyers. I also believe that SALT identifies the critical importance of bringing people from diverse backgrounds into the profession, in all capacities; I want to join the SALT Board of Governors to be part of achieving these goals.

Steven A. Ramirez, Professor, Loyola University Chicago

Last year proved challenging for me personally. The year started with a bicycle crash that led to major surgery and extended physical therapy. I published (with co-authors) a new book on the breakdown in the rule of law following the Great Financial Crisis (The Case for the Corporate Death Penalty) and a law review article on diversity in the financial sector ( Diversifying to Mitigate Risk). I completed three other articles for publication. I chaired the planning committee for the annual meeting of ClassCrits, the Loyola Institute for Investor Protection, the AALS Committee for Retention and Recruitment of Minority Law Teachers and Students, and the Norman C. Amaker Social Justice Retreat (co-sponsored by Loyola and SALT). I undertook major responsibility for planning two law review symposia focusing on diversity in the legal academy (U. C. Davis L. Rev.) and social justice and capitalism (Seattle U. L. Rev.). Finally, I helped to “Get out the Vote” in the election and acted as Associate Dean for Research & Faculty Development (stepping down as 7/1/17).

This is the energy I will bring to the SALT Board. In a time when corporate and governing elites lay siege to the rule of law and social justice, those of us privileged enough to serve in the legal academy hold a moral obligation to resist on behalf of the disempowered. We must speak out to hold elites accountable. That is the commitment I offer to SALT: I will use this position to speak as loudly and as effectively as possible for social justice.

Christine Zuni Cruz, Professor and Associate Dean of Institutional Climate and Equity, University of New Mexico

 I have taught at the University of New Mexico School of Law for over twenty years. During this period of time I have had the experience of directing a clinical program and a legal program for Indigenous Peoples. I have sought to bring in the voices of local Indigenous experts and national and international legal figures to underscore the local impact of law. I continue to serve as a

faculty member of the Law and Indigenous Peoples program and this year served as an Associate Dean for Institutional Climate and Equity. My experience has shown me that the work to diversify legal institutions is an ongoing, ever-shifting challenge, with much of it arising from the successful efforts of diversification itself. I am interested in SALT’s continued commitment to diversity within the legal academy and its work in challenging the bar exam. I look forward to re-engaging with faculty from across the country after having spent the past few years focused at an institutional and local level and a year teaching law in Canada. My current research includes dialogue, with an emphasis on listening, helping diverse peoples communicate to work more effectively together, and interact productively; and diplomacy, when opposing parties are at an impasse. As an academician, I have worked on experiential learning, on the preparation of students for practice, including licensing, broadening perspectives and understandings on global legal traditions, developments on the rights of Indigenous Peoples internationally, including decolonization, and cultural and racial literacies for the practice of law within specific underserved and historically oppressed communities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SALT Announces Co-Presidents Elect, Nominees to Board of Governors

 

SALT is proud to announce the selection of Co-Presidents Elect and nominees to the Board of Governors.  Their photos and statements of interest are set out below.  The Board nominees will be presented as a slate at the SALT Annual Member Meeting to be held on Saturday, November 11, 2017, at 6 p.m. at the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic and Center for Social Justice, 540 Broadway Street, New Orleans, LA 70118.  The Co-Presidents Elect will serve two-year terms starting on January 1, 2018, and elected Board members will begin three-year terms on the same date.

SALT members may submit additional Board of Governors nominations.  The additional nominations must (1) be made no later than September 12, 2017, (2) include a statement of interest from the nominee of up to 250 words, and (3) include signatures or other written support of the nomination from at least seven additional SALT members.  Once nominations are closed, a reminder about the Annual Meeting in New Orleans on November 11 will be sent out along with a proxy form for those members unable to attend the Annual Meeting.

Only current SALT members qualify for nomination. You can join or renew here.  If you or your nominee are unsure of your membership status, please send an email to info@saltlaw.org including your name and institution so that we may check your status.  If you are not currently a member or your membership has lapsed because you have not paid dues in the past year, please join or renew today.

We thank you for your support of SALT.  We appreciate the dedication of our all-volunteer organization as we continue to work toward our core values of diversity, teaching excellence, and social justice.

Sincerely,
Sara Rankin (Seattle U) & Denise Roy (Mitchell Hamline)
SALT Co-Presidents

 Co-Presidents Elect

Professor Matthew Charity

Thank you for allowing me to express my interest in serving as Co-President of SALT.

I have worked with a number of SALT committees over the past five years, and have been excited to plan and attend workshops that help me rethink my teaching, re-contextualize my scholarship, and build on my passion for justice.  The human rights and teaching awards have brought many of us together to recognize colleagues that we admire and, in many ways, aspire to be.  For a large number of us, SALT has been, and continues to be, a home within the legal academy.

I have been teaching since 2007, and have found support in the SALT community throughout my legal teaching career.  Some of the support has been personal: advice at a pivotal moment, or reassurance during a stressful time.  Other support has been structural: letters drafted by the organization supporting and expanding tenure and academic freedom; writings on the SALT blog that expand on ideas I’m formulating for the classroom on issues of human rights or racial and economic justice; and many other mechanisms that give me confidence in my teaching, scholarship, and interactions with legal discourse in general.

Most of my students are not surprised to discuss questions of fundamental justice when they take courses in international or federal criminal law, or human rights; but with the support of SALT members, I have found it easier to phrase questions from a perspective considering identity and rights in courses such as contracts, as well.

I am a proud member of SALT, and would be honored to serve as a SALT Co-President.
 

Professor Davida Finger

I look forward to serving as a SALT leader and to building on the incredible foundation this community has developed to further justice both within and outside of the academy.  My role on the Board is an opportunity to continue to learn from the SALT community and help lead SALT’s advocacy efforts on critical justice.

I first learned about SALT as a law student when I attended the Trina Grillo conference and knew right away that the SALT community was special.  The line-up of speakers addressing topics such as access to justice, diversity in law schools, human rights, racial justice, and poverty was exactly what I needed to hear.  SALT members have continued to inspire and guide me as I have completed my first term with the SALT Board of Governors.  I would be honored and delighted to continue to contribute to SALT’s important mission for another term.

I joined the Loyola Law Clinic to work on post-disaster matters following the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes.  For years, I was engaged with different SALT members in our post-disaster work.  My involvement with SALT has grown to include a range of service activities for the Teaching conference, Cover workshop, and membership and access to justice committees.

This is an important time for our SALT community to be even more reflective and responsive through position statements, collaborations, and strategic advocacy.  I am strongly committed to furthering SALT’s mission around justice reforms, academic opportunity and freedom, and justice-oriented pedagogy.

I now serve as a Clinic Professor at Loyola University New Orleans School of Law where I teach the Community Justice clinic and direct the Incubator Program for solo practitioners.

Nominees to the Board of Governors

Emily Benfer, Clinical Professor, Formerly of Loyola Chicago

Thank you for the opportunity to express my enthusiastic interest in serving on the SALT Board of Governors for a third term. I am an avid supporter and member of SALT because SALT 1) constantly challenges me and other members of the academic community to teach as instruments of social justice; 2) actively, effectively, and reliably responds to injustice in the legal community and society; and 3) is made up of committed, passionate, exceptional leaders who inspire me on a daily basis.

I have dedicated my career to advancing SALT’s values of social justice, equality and diversity, and the mentoring and teaching of socially responsible attorneys and professionals. Since 2010, I have served as a Clinical Professor of Law and the founding director of the Health Justice Project at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Stritch School of Medicine. In this role, I have trained students of law, public health, social work, and medicine to advocate side by side with the local and national advocacy communities in order to advance social justice for marginalized and impoverished communities. It has been a privilege to bring this collaborative approach to the SALT board as the past Chair of the Membership Committee, Nominations Committee, and Norman Amaker Public Interest Law Retreat. I look forward to building on this work and welcome the challenge of advancing SALT’s goals during a time when their realization is of paramount importance, perhaps more than ever.

Olympia Duhart, Director of Legal Research and Writing Program and Professor of Law, Nova Southeastern University

SALT has been a central part of my experience as a law teacher. In SALT, I found a community of academic activists. In these challenging times, it is more important than ever for us to continue the hard and important work of advancing the rule of law. SALT is essential to shaping policy, improving legal education, supporting the community and fighting to make the legal profession more inclusive.

During my past term on the SALT Board of Governors, I joined these efforts in many ways: I helped draft an amicus brief in Fisher v. University of Texas; planned BA to JD Pipeline events around the country to help historically marginalized people find a path to law school; organized a Breaking-In Program for underrepresented people to join the legal academy; and organized community workshops on student activism and police accountability in communities of color. But I was most privileged to serve with Professor Ruben Garcia as Co-President of SALT, a post I held from 2014 to 2016. It was an honor to work with people committed to transformative law teaching and social justice. We made great strides, but there is still so much work to do. The core values advanced at SALT – teaching excellence, social justice and diversity – mirror my own. So it is hard to imagine my life in the academy without my SALT family. I look forward to another term on the board and continuing our work.

Alexi Freeman, Associate Professor of the Practice and Director of Externships & Public Interest Initiatives, University of Denver

I am currently Associate Professor of the Practice and Director of Externships & Public Interest Initiatives at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. I teach a range of social justice oriented courses and engage in a number of out of class efforts aimed at growing the number of students interested in pursuing social change. I am a racial justice movement lawyer at heart and do everything I can to challenge traditional notions of hierarchy and power dynamics within society, the practice of law, and legal education.

For the past three years, I have been honored to serve on SALT’s board of governors and am excited to seek re-election. During my tenure with SALT, my efforts have been focused namely in two areas: the access to justice committee and the SSAC, the pilot SALT Student Advisory Council. I look forward to continuing to contribute in these arenas and specifically find ways to connect SALT-Y students with SALT to grow our influence and spread a social justice vision for legal education.

In addition, I am a long-term contract faculty member with governing rights. The status of externship faculty across the country ranges greatly and a number of different challenges exist. Contract faculty are often underrepresented in national organizations, and I am eager to serve as a voice for such clinicians.

Steve Friedland, Associate Dean for Innovations in Engaged Learning in the Law, Professor of Law and Senior Scholar, Elon University

SALT is needed now more than ever. With the identity and focus of many law schools subject to increasing volatility and uncertainty, how legal education defines itself in the coming decade has become increasingly important.

I have become more involved in SALT in recent years and wish to step up my service. I have been a member of the SALT Junior Teaching Award Committee the past two years. I participated in the fall 2016 SALT conference on teaching in Chicago. I assisted with the SALT pipeline program at Elon Law School during the past two years, including teaching in it. In addition, I have become passionate about developing programs for first generation professionals, a group that faces may unseen headwinds in their education and careers. I twice sponsored faculty discussion groups on this topic at the SEALS conference, spoke at the 2016 annual LSAC conference on the subject, and founded a First Gen Professionals Association at Elon Law School. This group deserves more attention and integration into the fabric of legal education. We are lucky to have the opportunity to impact our students and the community through our teaching, but that teaching is often undervalued. Over time, I have become much more interested in promoting a learning-centered education that better serves the whole class, and not just a few. Having taught legal writing, externships and substantive law courses, I have seen various dimensions of the process and have experimented with multiple delivery methods, from design thinking to brain science techniques. These alternatives connect differing forms of teaching with social justice and other core values of SALT.

For all of the above reasons, it would be a privilege to serve SALT as a member of its Board of Governors.

Catherine Grosso, Associate Professor of Law, Michigan State University

A bit of very good luck made me a law teacher. A longstanding SALT member reviewed my quirky resume and passed it on to her dean. To me, she said “SALT is the organization for you.” SALT remains the community of legal academics among whom I feel most at home. SALT’s commitment to justice within the legal community and beyond nurtures me. SALT provides a welcome respite from the hierarchy and patriarchy that dominate the academy. It also plays an essential role in mentoring diverse leaders and celebrating our heroes.

Now more than ever, we must redouble efforts to expand the profession and access to law. For example, we must explicate the limits of admissions benchmarks. While LSAT may predict the success of strong students, it cannot explain why so many “at risk” students far outperform their numbers. It cannot predict their future success as lawyers in their communities. We must not to lose these students in this time of shrinking admissions. SALT’s pedagogical initiatives provide key support to this effort.

I seek a leadership role in order to give back to the organization and support progressive values in legal education. I look forward to an opportunity to learn from other members of the SALT community. Involvement in the board is a chance to serve and to develop my own thinking about the most challenging issues facing legal education today. I hope to become a more engaged and thoughtful member of our community through involvement in the SALT board.

Joan Howarth, Dean Emerita and Professor of Law, Michigan State University, Visiting Professor, UNLV

To maximize our strength, progressive law professors need a community and a voice, and SALT provides both. SALT focuses its progressive activism outward, to the big justice issues of the world; and inward, within our own professional home, legal education. Since its founding, SALT has helped to transform the legal academy by supporting women, members of the LGBT communities, and people of color to become participants and then leaders. SALT conferences have inspired the best teaching of thousands of us, including me. I am a grateful beneficiary of SALT’s efforts.

Before law teaching I practiced as a public defender and ACLU attorney. I have been on the faculties at Golden Gate, UNLV, and Michigan State, where I served as dean for eight years. I have taught as a visiting professor at UC Hastings, UC Davis, and UC Berkeley, and now back at UNLV. My scholarly interests include gender, sexuality, and capital punishment; LGBT legal history; and, most recently, attorney licensing. I have worked on various SALT projects, including working for LGBT justice, defending academic freedom, and challenging the exclusionary bar exam. [SALT has been beating its head against the bar exam wall for twenty years, but we are finally seeing signs of possible progress.] When I previously served on the SALT board, from about 1998 to 2014, I took on many organizational leadership roles, including chairing lots of committees. I am pleased and honored to be nominated to return.

Margo Lindauer, Associate Teaching Professor, Northeastern University

I am honored to present this statement of interest to be considered as a member of the Society of American Law Teachers’ Board of Governors for the 2017-2018 year. I am wholly committed to SALT’s commitment to advancing teaching excellence, social justice and diversity. I would be honored to be part of a broader community (outside of my own law school) of progressive law teachers, law school administrators, librarians, academic support experts, students and affiliates to further the conversation and the work that SALT is doing. As a current member of SALT and its Access to Justice Committee, I have been exposed and worked on some of SALT’s initiatives. I would be thrilled to expand my knowledge, commitment and dedicate my time to working more on a broader range of SALT’s identified goals.

I currently direct the Domestic Violence Institute at Northeastern University School of Law and hold a joint appointment as an Associate Teaching Professor with the Law School and Bouve College of Health Sciences. In my capacity as a law professor, I teach a six credit Domestic Violence Clinic, a Spanish for Lawyers Course and oversee the operation of the Institute which in addition to the clinic supports a first year volunteer program as well as multiple Independent Studies and Research opportunities. My goal is to help students learn how to have empathy, be client-centered, be holistic and collaborative in their approach, be culturally sensitive and understand and identify the biases they bring to their advocacy work all while effectively representing their clients’ interests.

I am interested and committed to being part of the national conversations about how we recruit and train the next generation of lawyers. I also believe that SALT identifies the critical importance of bringing people from diverse backgrounds into the profession, in all capacities; I want to join the SALT Board of Governors to be part of achieving these goals.

Steven A. Ramirez, Professor, Loyola University Chicago

Last year proved challenging for me personally. The year started with a bicycle crash that led to major surgery and extended physical therapy. I published (with co-authors) a new book on the breakdown in the rule of law following the Great Financial Crisis (The Case for the Corporate Death Penalty) and a law review article on diversity in the financial sector ( Diversifying to Mitigate Risk). I completed three other articles for publication. I chaired the planning committee for the annual meeting of ClassCrits, the Loyola Institute for Investor Protection, the AALS Committee for Retention and Recruitment of Minority Law Teachers and Students, and the Norman C. Amaker Social Justice Retreat (co-sponsored by Loyola and SALT). I undertook major responsibility for planning two law review symposia focusing on diversity in the legal academy (U. C. Davis L. Rev.) and social justice and capitalism (Seattle U. L. Rev.). Finally, I helped to “Get out the Vote” in the election and acted as Associate Dean for Research & Faculty Development (stepping down as 7/1/17).

This is the energy I will bring to the SALT Board. In a time when corporate and governing elites lay siege to the rule of law and social justice, those of us privileged enough to serve in the legal academy hold a moral obligation to resist on behalf of the disempowered. We must speak out to hold elites accountable. That is the commitment I offer to SALT: I will use this position to speak as loudly and as effectively as possible for social justice.

Christine Zuni Cruz, Professor and Associate Dean of Institutional Climate and Equity, University of New Mexico

 I have taught at the University of New Mexico School of Law for over twenty years. During this period of time I have had the experience of directing a clinical program and a legal program for Indigenous Peoples. I have sought to bring in the voices of local Indigenous experts and national and international legal figures to underscore the local impact of law. I continue to serve as a

faculty member of the Law and Indigenous Peoples program and this year served as an Associate Dean for Institutional Climate and Equity. My experience has shown me that the work to diversify legal institutions is an ongoing, ever-shifting challenge, with much of it arising from the successful efforts of diversification itself. I am interested in SALT’s continued commitment to diversity within the legal academy and its work in challenging the bar exam. I look forward to re-engaging with faculty from across the country after having spent the past few years focused at an institutional and local level and a year teaching law in Canada. My current research includes dialogue, with an emphasis on listening, helping diverse peoples communicate to work more effectively together, and interact productively; and diplomacy, when opposing parties are at an impasse. As an academician, I have worked on experiential learning, on the preparation of students for practice, including licensing, broadening perspectives and understandings on global legal traditions, developments on the rights of Indigenous Peoples internationally, including decolonization, and cultural and racial literacies for the practice of law within specific underserved and historically oppressed communities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SALT Announces Nominees to Board of Governors Copy

 

SALT is proud to announce the following Nominees to the Board of Governors.  The Nominees will be presented as a slate at the Annual Members’ Meeting to be held at 6:15 p.m. on Friday, September 30, 2016, at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois, in conjunction with the 2016 SALT Teaching Conference. Elected Board members start their three-year terms on January 1, 2017.  SALT members are encouraged to attend the meeting in person or to vote by proxy by submitting an online proxy form.

You must be a member in good standing of SALT at the time of the meeting or at the time you submit a proxy.  If you are unsure of your membership status, please send an email to info@saltlaw.org including your name and institution so that we may check your status.  If you are not currently a member or your membership is lapsed because you have not paid dues in the past year, please join or renew to be eligible to vote or submit a proxy.

 

Nominees to the Board of Governors
Image of Claudia Angelos

Claudia Angelos, Clinical Professor of Law, NYU School of Law (returning)

The three years since I joined SALT’s Board of Governors have flown by. I share SALT’s values and its goals and would be privileged to continue for another term. Since joining the Board I’ve served on the dinner and nominations committees, but my work has focused chiefly on the Legal Education committee, dogging the regulators, following state bar developments and hoping to stimulate the conversation about the future of our profession and its service to the community.

Legal education stands at a crossroads and SALT is more essential than ever to the task of insuring that it takes a direction that will insure that social justice and client and community service be its goals. Like others in legal education, SALT now has to do more with less.  Its members and leadership will have to work harder and be more vigilant to serve our purposes, and I would be honored to continue to do my part through SALT.

I am Clinical Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, where I teach lawyering and litigation and directs the Civil Rights Clinic, the Racial Justice Clinic, and the New York Civil Liberties Clinic. Over more than twenty years at the law school my students and I have litigated more than one hundred civil rights cases in the New York federal courts.  I’m also a past president of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and now serve as its general counsel as well as on the board and the executive committee of the ACLU.

Douglas Colbert, Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law (returning)

It has been a pleasure to serve as a member of SALT’s Board these past years.  SALT’s interests and mine converge on so many fundamental human rights issues, particularly in RACIAL justice, police violence, access to law school and the profession, and international law.

I seek re-nomination for one more term to help complete a project that many SALT members and prior A2J co-chairs have contributed.  SALT’s Curriculum Reform Committee recognizes most people are denied access to legal representation in civil and criminal proceedings, and that most lawyers fails to meet their pro bono responsibility to serve economically disadvantaged people.

SALT’s Curriculum Reform Committee sees faculty assuming a critical role within the classroom of reinforcing lawyers’ pro bono obligation to economically-disadvantaged communities by highlighting and integrating systemic social justice deficiencies in the course we teach.  It views the Preamble of the ABA Rules as requiring the academy to embrace primary responsibility for embracing lawyers’ special responsibility as public citizens and enhancing the administration of justice to people unable to afford counsel.

As a co-chair with the late Pamela Bridgewater, I want to be part of the current effort led by SALT’s current leadership and A2J Committee co-chairs to renew members’ energy and interest in showing how curriculum justice reform can be done.

Allyson E. Gold; Curt & Linda Rodin Visiting Clinical Professor of Law, Supervising Attorney, Health Justice Project; Loyola Chicago School of Law

I chose to pursue a career in law in order to address the systemic inequity I witnessed as a tenant advocate in Washington, DC. As a law teacher at Loyola University Chicago School of Law’s Health Justice Project, a medical-legal partnership clinic, I train students to develop a comprehensive approach to eliminating disparity, provide quality legal representation to low-income individuals and families, and advise organizational clients in the development of public policy to create health equity and social justice. I also teach doctrinal courses, such as Housing Law & Policy in the US and Access to Health, that challenge students to understand systems that reproduce societal inequality, and what they can about it as attorneys.

I only recently became a SALT member. However, immediately thereafter, I joined the SALT 2016 Teaching Conference committee, and have helped with preparations for the fall conference. During this time, I’ve been continually impressed by the passion of my colleagues and their dedication to promoting justice and supporting the advancement of legal education. In addition, SALT’s recent statement against racial violence in the wake of events in Baton Rouge, St. Paul, and Dallas resonated strongly with me; I believe that we should use our platform as educators and attorneys to speak out against injustice. For these reasons, I would like to become more involved in SALT as a member of the board. If selected, I will work diligently to advance SALT’s mission of promoting racial justice as well as expanding the power of law to underserved communities.
Harpalani_Vinay

Vinay Harpalani, Associate Professor of Law, Savannah School of Law

I am currently Associate Professor of Law at Savannah Law School, where I will soon begin my third year as a tenure-track faculty member.  I would be honored and excited to join the Board of Governors of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT).  Through its mission and its activities, SALT embodies all of the reasons that I became a law professor: to pursue my three passions of teaching, scholarship, and social justice.  I am grateful for the community that SALT has provided for me – by bringing together progressive, social justice-oriented law teachers from diverse backgrounds.  I have already enjoyed and benefited from my interactions with SALT members, and my service on the Board would only enhance this experience.

My major involvement in SALT thus far has occurred through the Affirmative Action Committee, where I have advised SALT on its U.S. Supreme Court amicus briefs in support of race-conscious university admissions.  This is one of my areas of expertise and I plan to continue working for SALT to defend diversity and affirmative action.  In the future, I would also like to contribute to SALT’s voice on issues and challenges in legal education, its support and mentorship of social justice-oriented teachers, and its advocacy for important civil rights causes such as #BlackLivesMatter.  SALT is the ideal organization for me to make a significant contribution and to benefit professionally and personally from my involvement.  Thank you for your consideration.
Brooks R. Holland

Brooks R. Holland, Associate Professor of Law, Gonzaga University School of Law  (returning)

Please accept my enthusiastic application to serve another term as a member of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) Board of Governors. I joined the Board in 2013, and have cherished the opportunity that SALT has provided for me to support and advocate for the social justice issues that matter most to us as progressive law teachers.

During my first term, I actively engaged in SALT Board activities, from Board meetings themselves to our teaching conference, annual dinner, and advocacy, communication, and recruitment efforts.

Moreover, in the last year, I endeavored to assume leadership responsibilities within SALT.

Last spring I began a term as co-chair of the Access to Justice Committee, and this summer I joined the Board’s Executive Committee.

I respectfully request the opportunity to continue to support SALT’s important mission by serving another term on the Board of Governors. Thank you for your consideration.
Hugh Mundy

Hugh Mundy, Assistant Professor of Law, The John Marshall Law School 

I joined The John Marshall Law School after two years at the Shepard Broad Law Center at Nova Southeastern University. Before entering academia, I was an assistant federal public defender for eight years working first in Tennessee and then in the Southern District of New York.

After clerking for a federal judge in Pennsylvania, I joined the Tennessee Justice Center in Nashville, focusing on litigation to expand services for children under Tennessee’s managed Medicaid program. Currently, I teach Criminal Law, Evidence, and Lawyering Skills. I am also active in the Pro Bono Clinic, where I work with students representing indigent clients in Illinois post-conviction and federal civil rights litigation.

I am interested in joining the SALT Board of Directors as I deeply believe in the organization’s mission to prioritize social justice teaching in legal education, improve the legal profession, and broaden access to justice for marginalized communities.  Since leaving practice, SALT has provided a primary means for me to stay connected with public interest projects and initiatives. Through SALT, I have also forged meaningful relationships with other like-minded academics and activists from law schools across the country.

Currently, I am the co-chairperson for the upcoming SALT Teaching Conference in September 2016. In addition, I contributed to SALT’s consumer guide for prospective law students, blogged for the SALT website, and participated in committee meetings at the SALT Teaching Conference in Las Vegas. I would be honored to expand my relationship with and contribution to SALT as a Board member.

Sean M. Scott, Professor of Law, Loyola Los Angeles Law School

I am thrilled to have been nominated to serve on the SALT Board of Governors and am excited about the possibility of joining the Board, because the mission of SALT reflects my own values and interests.

The dramatic changes in the legal profession generally, and in legal education specifically, present a direct threat to diversity and an indirect threat to social justice.  Organizations such as SALT must be a bulwark against the pressures and threats to diversity and access to the legal profession; our law schools and SALT must be a vocal advocates of inclusion and innovation. I want to be involved in this advocacy.

My commitment to the values espoused by SALT is reflected in my personal and professional life. As a chair of BLSA, professor of Race, Gender and the Law, chair of Faculty Appointments, and as an administrator I have advocated consistently for inclusion and diversity.  Additionally, I have spent the last several years leading the curricular innovations at Loyola Law School, including the initiation of a low-bono legal incubator. Recently, I assisted the law school in structuring a pipeline program with a prominent Los Angeles law firm for undergraduate students. I recently have authored a few op-ed pieces on the impact of student debt on students of color, and the need to reform legal education.

Now, as I step down as Senior Associate Dean I am more available than I have been in the last 10 years.  Becoming an engaged member of the SALT Board and the organization is an opportunity I relish.


Colleen Shanahan, Associate Clinical Temple University School of Law

I am thrilled to have been nominated to serve on the SALT Board of Governors and am excited about the possibility

of joining the Board, because the mission of SALT reflects my own values and interests.

The dramatic changes in the legal profession generally, and in legal education specifically, present a direct threat to diversity and an indirect threat to social justice.  Organizations such as SALT must be a bulwark against the pressures and threats to diversity and access to the legal profession; our law schools and SALT must be a vocal advocates of inclusion and innovation. I want to be involved in this advocacy.

My commitment to the values espoused by SALT is reflected in my personal and professional life. As a chair of BLSA, professor of Race, Gender and the Law, chair of Faculty Appointments, and as an administrator I have advocated consistently for inclusion and diversity.  Additionally, I have spent the last several years leading the curricular innovations at Loyola Law School, including the initiation of a low-bono legal incubator. Recently, I assisted the law school in structuring a pipeline program with a prominent Los Angeles law firm for undergraduate students. I recently have authored a few op-ed pieces on the impact of student debt on students of color, and the need to reform legal education.

Now, as I step down as Senior Associate Dean I am more available than I have been in the last 10 years.  Becoming an engaged member of the SALT Board and the organization is an opportunity I relish.

SALT Announces Co-Presidents Elect, Nominees to Board of Governors

 

 

SALT is proud to announce the following Co-Presidents Elect and Nominees to the Board of Governors.   The Nominees will be presented as a slate at the Members’ Meeting on Friday October 2, 2015 at 6 p.m. Pacific Time at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Anaheim, CA.    The Co-Presidents Elect will serve a two-year term starting on January 1, 2016, and elected Board members start their three-year terms on January 1.

Only those SALT members current in their dues as of September 15 may vote in the election. If you are unsure about the status of your membership, please e-mail your name and school to info@saltlaw.org before September 15.  If you would like to vote by proxy, please send your vote to info@saltlaw.org by October 1.  To renew your dues online, go to saltlaw.org.
We hope that you can attend the LatCrit Conference, and especially the SALT-LatCrit Faculty Development Workshop in Anaheim, Oct. 1.  For more information on the conference, go to latcrit.org.We thank you for your support of SALT.  We appreciate the dedication of our all-volunteer organization as we continue to work toward our core values of diversity, teaching excellence, and social justice.
Sincerely,
Olympia Duhart (Nova) & Ruben Garcia (UNLV)
SALT Co-Presidents

 Co-Presidents Elect
rankins
Professor Sara Rankin,
Seattle University School of Law

I am deeply honored and humbled to have been nominated to serve as a Co-President of SALT for 2016-18. I can think of no other entity that has bridged and supported my personal and professional instincts as well as SALT.  Through our incredible SALT members, I have found inspiration, challenge, community, growth, and friendship.  SALT’s mission of inclusion and excellence in legal education fuel my scholarship, my activism, my teaching, and my passion for lawyering in the public interest.  In my past few years on the Board, I have been fortunate to serve as Chair and Co-Chair for the last two SALT Teaching Conferences, Chair of the Annual Dinner, and as a member of the Legal Education Committee.  I have also been privileged to serve on SALT’s Executive Committee.  Although I did not know it at the time, I was SALT-y before I even enrolled in law school.  Before my legal career, I earned a M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where I focused on education reform.  As a practicing lawyer, I devoted significant time to pro bono work for indigent populations and developed training programs for young lawyers who also wished to serve these communities.  At the Seattle University School of Law, I founded and currently direct the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project (HRAP), which connects students, law faculty, lawyers, community organizations, and people experiencing homelessness to advance the rights of visibly poor people.  My scholarship also supports SALT’s mission:  I research and write on the social and political aspects of legal education reform, homeless civil rights, and social movements.  This nomination to serve as SALT Co-President is a tremendous honor and I look forward to leading, learning, and making a difference with all of you as colleagues and friends.
 RS16450_Denise-Roy-200x300
Professor Denise Roy,
William Mitchell College of Law

I am honored to have been nominated to serve, along with Sara Rankin, as a Co-President of SALT. I began teaching at William Mitchell College of Law in January 1992, and one of my very first experiences as a law teacher was to attend the annual SALT dinner.  Always nurturing and inspiring, the gathering was deeply moving that year.  Professor Mary Jo Frug, a courageous and beloved feminist scholar at New England School of Law, had been murdered the April before and was honored and remembered at the dinner.  The tribute was personal and raw.  In grief, the confluence of head and heart that makes SALT so special particularly evident.  I became a member then and have been one ever since.  The teaching conferences have been invaluable to me as a new and more seasoned teacher.  A favorite SALT moment was the San Francisco march of law professors clad in academic robes in protest of Prop 209, California’s anti-affirmative-action initiative.  I joined the Board of Governors in 2007 to help modernize and organize SALT’s budget and other financial practices as Chair of the Board’s Budget Committee.  I remember the days when Stuart Filler organized every annual dinner and financial “records” were stored in shoe boxes and was lucky to work with SALT through the Open Society grant years, when we enjoyed the luxury of having Hazel Weiser as Executive Director.  I’m excited to help lead SALT as we reclaim our identity as an all-volunteer organization, as we continue the struggle for justice, excellence and relevance in legal education, and as we redouble our efforts to fight law’s injustice.

Nominees to the Board of Governors
Anna Carpenter, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, University of Tulsa

In October of 2014, I attended my first SALT Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Within a few hours of walking in the door, I recognized something was different.  Simply put, I thought: “These are my people.”  I met person after person who was clearly committed to social justice, to diversity and equality, and to effective teaching—commitments I share, both personally and professionally.As a newer law teacher, I have already benefited from SALT’s work.  From the comparative information in SALT’s salary survey, to the critical analysis of proposed ABA standards, to engaging and productive conferences and policy conversations, SALT is a vital and progressive voice in legal education.  I would be honored to be a small part of that voice.Given what I know about SALT’s work and the SALT community, I seek a leadership role in order to give back to the organization and support progressive values in legal education.  I am also interested in the opportunity to learn from other members of the SALT community.  Involvement in the board is a chance to serve, but it is also a chance to sharpen my own thinking about the most challenging issues facing legal education today.  It is a chance to learn more about legal education, legal academia, and law teaching.  Through involvement in SALT, I hope to become a more responsible, responsive, and thoughtful member of our community. 
Matthew Charity, Professor of Law, Western New England University

I have been teaching since 2007, and have found support in the SALT community throughout my legal teaching career.  Some of the support has been personal: advice at a pivotal moment or reassurance during a stressful time.  Other support has been structural: letters drafted by the organization supporting and expanding tenure and academic freedom; writings on the SALT blog that expand on ideas I’m formulating for the classroom on issues of human rights or racial and economic justice; and many other mechanisms that give me confidence in my teaching, scholarship, and interactions with legal discourse in general.Most of my students are not surprised to discuss questions of fundamental justice when they take courses in international criminal law and human rights; but with the support of SALT members, I have found it easier to phrase questions from a perspective considering identity and rights in courses such as contracts, as well.Having served on the planning committee of the Faculty Development Workshop, and moderated a number of sessions there, I have also seen how SALT creates a zone of comfort for others entering, or thinking about entering, the academy.  Programming such as the Faculty Development Workshop gives me confidence in the direction of the legal academy, and the role of progressive voices moving forward.I am a proud member of SALT, and would be honored to serve on the Board of Governors.
Justin Hansford, Assistant Professor, St. Louis University

I am writing this statement to express my enthusiastic interest in serving as a member the SALT Board of Governors for a three year term officially beginning on January 1, 2016.  Being named to this position would help me to further bring into alignment my deeply held professional and personal values.Many leaders of the scholar activist community have shared with me the long legacy of SALT support for law professors active in work for social change.  I plan to be a scholar-activist for as long as I breathe. I would genuinely cherish the chance to become a more engaged part of that legacy.Even more than the legacy of the past, my interest grows primarily out of a great sense of gratitude for SALT’s present work and the desire to promote SALT values in the future.  In the article “When Activism is Worth the Risk” in the July 2015 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education, I discussed my experiences in Ferguson.  As the article noted, my commitment to the #BlackLivesMatter movement has placed a target on my back in some circles.  During this tumultuous time, members and especially Board Members of SALT have done more than any other legal organization to express the willingness to provide professional support for me. As a result, the SALT bumper sticker is the only one above the door on my office to this day.Life provides few opportunities to truly “pay it forward,” but this is one.
Donna H. Lee, Professor of Law, CUNY

My interest in serving on the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) board stems from my commitment to the values that SALT strives to advance – social justice, diversity, and teaching excellence.  Throughout my legal career, I have been fortunate to do public interest work in a variety of contexts, including the Law Reform Unit of the Legal Aid Society in New York, the ACLU National Prison Project, and most recently teaching in the clinical program at CUNY School of Law.  Since 2012, I have embraced CUNY’s dual mission of training social justice lawyers and diversifying the legal profession.  Working with SALT would be a natural extension of and synergistic complement to my work at CUNY.Similarly, serving on the board of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) has already afforded me the opportunity to collaborate with SALT colleagues on ABA advocacy regarding proposed changes to law school accreditation standards.  I would look forward to building on this work, and also welcome the challenge of working on and learning about other issues related to empowering underserved communities.I believe that I will have the time necessary to serve as an active SALT board member since I will be rolling off the CLEA board at the end of 2015.  I would be honored to join the community of SALT board members and to delve more deeply into the various social justice, diversity, and legal education issues that are central to SALT’s mission.
Beth Lyon, Clinical Professor of Law, Cornell (returning) 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to seek reelection to the Board of Governors. I would like to serve a third term on the SALT Board of Governors to continue assisting the organization with its human rights advocacy. During my first term on the SALT Board of Governors, I was most active with three projects for the Human Rights Committee: co-authoring a SALT Shadow Report to the United Nations Committee on Racial Discrimination regarding attacks on diversity U.S. legal education; co-authoring and publicizing a report to the then-new Obama Administration on regulatory immigration fixes; and co-organizing SALT’s first CLE training on representing unaccompanied children, through a partnership with Kids in Need of Defense and hosted by NYU Law. In my second term my primary projects were: 1) contributing to a SALT consumer guide to legal education for social-change-conscious applicants; 2) working with the Human Rights Committee to file a second Shadow Report to the CERD; and 3) supporting Committee member initiatives such as filing an application for SALT’s Consultative Status to the UN and generating statement on racial violence in the U.S. In my third term, if there is interest, I intend to propose and coordinate development of a SALT manual on supporting foreign law professors whose academic freedom is threatened.
Zinelle October, Esq., American Constitution Society (Affiliate Member of the Board) 

I have worked at the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) for almost five years. I started at ACS leading our student chapters team. It became really clear to me in that role that SALT’s people are ACS’s people. Not only are our missions compatible, but many of the SALT members are ACS faculty advisors, speakers and writers.I have attended several SALT events, including the annual SALT dinner. SALT’s work is really impressive and essential. I want to join the board to help shape the future of the organization. I believe in SALT’s mission and want to help achieve it.My work at ACS will benefit SALT because I work with law students, law professors and other legal professionals across the country. I can help plug students and junior attorneys who express an interest in teaching into the SALT network. And I already work with our law professors to help identify interested students. A board position with SALT would benefit ACS because of how aligned our goals are. Together, we can work to advance social justice.
Hari Osofsky, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota (returning)

I am honored to be nominated to another term on the SALT Board of Governors.  I became a professor with the goal of my writing, teaching, and advocacy helping to leave the world a little better than I found it.  During the more than a decade I have spent thus far in academia, I have been so grateful to have SALT as a home. Being part of a community of law professors committed to advancing social justice goals inside the academy and beyond has been a core part of what has kept me going in my most difficult moments.I have benefitted greatly from the junior faculty workshops co-sponsored by SALT, as well as from the much-needed encouragement by SALT members that our collective efforts can help to bring greater social justice over time.  It has been exciting to try to give back to that community through my work on mentoring through our new teacher’s pipeline committee and helping to establish the SALTLaw Blog.  In my prior new teacher’s pipeline committee leadership, I have mentored numerous people who were considering the academic market, on the academic market, or pre-tenure; linked people to mentors; and helped to develop our programs for people trying to break into academia further.  I also organized a “breaking in” program here in the Twin Cities in collaboration with colleagues from all four area law schools. If reelected to the SALT Board, I am committed to helping our mentoring program to grow and develop further.

SALT Announces Co-Presidents Elect, Nominees to Board of Governors

 

 

SALT is proud to announce the following Co-Presidents Elect and Nominees to the Board of Governors.   The Nominees will be presented as a slate at the Members’ Meeting on Friday October 2, 2015 at 6 p.m. Pacific Time at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Anaheim, CA.    The Co-Presidents Elect will serve a two-year term starting on January 1, 2016, and elected Board members start their three-year terms on January 1.

Only those SALT members current in their dues as of September 15 may vote in the election. If you are unsure about the status of your membership, please e-mail your name and school to info@saltlaw.org before September 15.  If you would like to vote by proxy, please send your vote to info@saltlaw.org by October 1.  To renew your dues online, go to saltlaw.org.
We hope that you can attend the LatCrit Conference, and especially the SALT-LatCrit Faculty Development Workshop in Anaheim, Oct. 1.  For more information on the conference, go to latcrit.org.We thank you for your support of SALT.  We appreciate the dedication of our all-volunteer organization as we continue to work toward our core values of diversity, teaching excellence, and social justice.
Sincerely,
Olympia Duhart (Nova) & Ruben Garcia (UNLV)
SALT Co-Presidents

 Co-Presidents Elect
rankins
Professor Sara Rankin,
Seattle University School of LawI am deeply honored and humbled to have been nominated to serve as a Co-President of SALT for 2016-18. I can think of no other entity that has bridged and supported my personal and professional instincts as well as SALT.  Through our incredible SALT members, I have found inspiration, challenge, community, growth, and friendship.  SALT’s mission of inclusion and excellence in legal education fuel my scholarship, my activism, my teaching, and my passion for lawyering in the public interest.  In my past few years on the Board, I have been fortunate to serve as Chair and Co-Chair for the last two SALT Teaching Conferences, Chair of the Annual Dinner, and as a member of the Legal Education Committee.  I have also been privileged to serve on SALT’s Executive Committee.  Although I did not know it at the time, I was SALT-y before I even enrolled in law school.  Before my legal career, I earned a M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where I focused on education reform.  As a practicing lawyer, I devoted significant time to pro bono work for indigent populations and developed training programs for young lawyers who also wished to serve these communities.  At the Seattle University School of Law, I founded and currently direct the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project (HRAP), which connects students, law faculty, lawyers, community organizations, and people experiencing homelessness to advance the rights of visibly poor people.  My scholarship also supports SALT’s mission:  I research and write on the social and political aspects of legal education reform, homeless civil rights, and social movements.  This nomination to serve as SALT Co-President is a tremendous honor and I look forward to leading, learning, and making a difference with all of you as colleagues and friends.
 RS16450_Denise-Roy-200x300
Professor Denise Roy,
William Mitchell College of LawI am honored to have been nominated to serve, along with Sara Rankin, as a Co-President of SALT. I began teaching at William Mitchell College of Law in January 1992, and one of my very first experiences as a law teacher was to attend the annual SALT dinner.  Always nurturing and inspiring, the gathering was deeply moving that year.  Professor Mary Jo Frug, a courageous and beloved feminist scholar at New England School of Law, had been murdered the April before and was honored and remembered at the dinner.  The tribute was personal and raw.  In grief, the confluence of head and heart that makes SALT so special particularly evident.  I became a member then and have been one ever since.  The teaching conferences have been invaluable to me as a new and more seasoned teacher.  A favorite SALT moment was the San Francisco march of law professors clad in academic robes in protest of Prop 209, California’s anti-affirmative-action initiative.  I joined the Board of Governors in 2007 to help modernize and organize SALT’s budget and other financial practices as Chair of the Board’s Budget Committee.  I remember the days when Stuart Filler organized every annual dinner and financial “records” were stored in shoe boxes and was lucky to work with SALT through the Open Society grant years, when we enjoyed the luxury of having Hazel Weiser as Executive Director.  I’m excited to help lead SALT as we reclaim our identity as an all-volunteer organization, as we continue the struggle for justice, excellence and relevance in legal education, and as we redouble our efforts to fight law’s injustice.

Nominees to the Board of Governors
Anna Carpenter, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, University of Tulsa

In October of 2014, I attended my first SALT Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Within a few hours of walking in the door, I recognized something was different.  Simply put, I thought: “These are my people.”  I met person after person who was clearly committed to social justice, to diversity and equality, and to effective teaching—commitments I share, both personally and professionally.As a newer law teacher, I have already benefited from SALT’s work.  From the comparative information in SALT’s salary survey, to the critical analysis of proposed ABA standards, to engaging and productive conferences and policy conversations, SALT is a vital and progressive voice in legal education.  I would be honored to be a small part of that voice.Given what I know about SALT’s work and the SALT community, I seek a leadership role in order to give back to the organization and support progressive values in legal education.  I am also interested in the opportunity to learn from other members of the SALT community.  Involvement in the board is a chance to serve, but it is also a chance to sharpen my own thinking about the most challenging issues facing legal education today.  It is a chance to learn more about legal education, legal academia, and law teaching.  Through involvement in SALT, I hope to become a more responsible, responsive, and thoughtful member of our community. 
Matthew Charity, Professor of Law, Western New England University

I have been teaching since 2007, and have found support in the SALT community throughout my legal teaching career.  Some of the support has been personal: advice at a pivotal moment or reassurance during a stressful time.  Other support has been structural: letters drafted by the organization supporting and expanding tenure and academic freedom; writings on the SALT blog that expand on ideas I’m formulating for the classroom on issues of human rights or racial and economic justice; and many other mechanisms that give me confidence in my teaching, scholarship, and interactions with legal discourse in general.Most of my students are not surprised to discuss questions of fundamental justice when they take courses in international criminal law and human rights; but with the support of SALT members, I have found it easier to phrase questions from a perspective considering identity and rights in courses such as contracts, as well.Having served on the planning committee of the Faculty Development Workshop, and moderated a number of sessions there, I have also seen how SALT creates a zone of comfort for others entering, or thinking about entering, the academy.  Programming such as the Faculty Development Workshop gives me confidence in the direction of the legal academy, and the role of progressive voices moving forward.I am a proud member of SALT, and would be honored to serve on the Board of Governors.
Justin Hansford, Assistant Professor, St. Louis University

I am writing this statement to express my enthusiastic interest in serving as a member the SALT Board of Governors for a three year term officially beginning on January 1, 2016.  Being named to this position would help me to further bring into alignment my deeply held professional and personal values.Many leaders of the scholar activist community have shared with me the long legacy of SALT support for law professors active in work for social change.  I plan to be a scholar-activist for as long as I breathe. I would genuinely cherish the chance to become a more engaged part of that legacy.Even more than the legacy of the past, my interest grows primarily out of a great sense of gratitude for SALT’s present work and the desire to promote SALT values in the future.  In the article “When Activism is Worth the Risk” in the July 2015 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education, I discussed my experiences in Ferguson.  As the article noted, my commitment to the #BlackLivesMatter movement has placed a target on my back in some circles.  During this tumultuous time, members and especially Board Members of SALT have done more than any other legal organization to express the willingness to provide professional support for me. As a result, the SALT bumper sticker is the only one above the door on my office to this day.Life provides few opportunities to truly “pay it forward,” but this is one.
Donna H. Lee, Professor of Law, CUNY

My interest in serving on the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) board stems from my commitment to the values that SALT strives to advance – social justice, diversity, and teaching excellence.  Throughout my legal career, I have been fortunate to do public interest work in a variety of contexts, including the Law Reform Unit of the Legal Aid Society in New York, the ACLU National Prison Project, and most recently teaching in the clinical program at CUNY School of Law.  Since 2012, I have embraced CUNY’s dual mission of training social justice lawyers and diversifying the legal profession.  Working with SALT would be a natural extension of and synergistic complement to my work at CUNY.Similarly, serving on the board of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) has already afforded me the opportunity to collaborate with SALT colleagues on ABA advocacy regarding proposed changes to law school accreditation standards.  I would look forward to building on this work, and also welcome the challenge of working on and learning about other issues related to empowering underserved communities.I believe that I will have the time necessary to serve as an active SALT board member since I will be rolling off the CLEA board at the end of 2015.  I would be honored to join the community of SALT board members and to delve more deeply into the various social justice, diversity, and legal education issues that are central to SALT’s mission.
Beth Lyon, Clinical Professor of Law, Cornell (returning) 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to seek reelection to the Board of Governors. I would like to serve a third term on the SALT Board of Governors to continue assisting the organization with its human rights advocacy. During my first term on the SALT Board of Governors, I was most active with three projects for the Human Rights Committee: co-authoring a SALT Shadow Report to the United Nations Committee on Racial Discrimination regarding attacks on diversity U.S. legal education; co-authoring and publicizing a report to the then-new Obama Administration on regulatory immigration fixes; and co-organizing SALT’s first CLE training on representing unaccompanied children, through a partnership with Kids in Need of Defense and hosted by NYU Law. In my second term my primary projects were: 1) contributing to a SALT consumer guide to legal education for social-change-conscious applicants; 2) working with the Human Rights Committee to file a second Shadow Report to the CERD; and 3) supporting Committee member initiatives such as filing an application for SALT’s Consultative Status to the UN and generating statement on racial violence in the U.S. In my third term, if there is interest, I intend to propose and coordinate development of a SALT manual on supporting foreign law professors whose academic freedom is threatened.
Zinelle October, Esq., American Constitution Society (Affiliate Member of the Board) 

I have worked at the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) for almost five years. I started at ACS leading our student chapters team. It became really clear to me in that role that SALT’s people are ACS’s people. Not only are our missions compatible, but many of the SALT members are ACS faculty advisors, speakers and writers.I have attended several SALT events, including the annual SALT dinner. SALT’s work is really impressive and essential. I want to join the board to help shape the future of the organization. I believe in SALT’s mission and want to help achieve it.My work at ACS will benefit SALT because I work with law students, law professors and other legal professionals across the country. I can help plug students and junior attorneys who express an interest in teaching into the SALT network. And I already work with our law professors to help identify interested students. A board position with SALT would benefit ACS because of how aligned our goals are. Together, we can work to advance social justice.
Hari Osofsky, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota (returning)

I am honored to be nominated to another term on the SALT Board of Governors.  I became a professor with the goal of my writing, teaching, and advocacy helping to leave the world a little better than I found it.  During the more than a decade I have spent thus far in academia, I have been so grateful to have SALT as a home. Being part of a community of law professors committed to advancing social justice goals inside the academy and beyond has been a core part of what has kept me going in my most difficult moments.I have benefitted greatly from the junior faculty workshops co-sponsored by SALT, as well as from the much-needed encouragement by SALT members that our collective efforts can help to bring greater social justice over time.  It has been exciting to try to give back to that community through my work on mentoring through our new teacher’s pipeline committee and helping to establish the SALTLaw Blog.  In my prior new teacher’s pipeline committee leadership, I have mentored numerous people who were considering the academic market, on the academic market, or pre-tenure; linked people to mentors; and helped to develop our programs for people trying to break into academia further.  I also organized a “breaking in” program here in the Twin Cities in collaboration with colleagues from all four area law schools. If reelected to the SALT Board, I am committed to helping our mentoring program to grow and develop further.