Fall 2020 Events

Upcoming Events

Due to concerns regarding the coronavirus (COVID-19) and in keeping our campus community safe, all Clough events will be virtual. Registration will be required.


 
2020 Elections

The 2020 Elections: A Clough Center Conversation  

Moderated by Vlad Perju, BC Law School, Director of the Clough Center

Monday, November 23, 2020 | 12:00PM-1:00PM | Panel Discussion, Webinar

Registration is required. Zoom link will be sent before the day of the event.

Free and open to the public.

Speakers:

David Hopkins

David Hopkins
BC Professor of Political Science

His research and teaching interests include American political parties and elections, the U.S. Congress, voting behavior, public opinion, media and culture, and research methods. His book Red Fighting Blue: How Geography and Electoral Rules Polarize American Politics (Cambridge University Press) explains how the rise of the culture war, in combination with winner-take-all elections, has produced a regionally divided electorate and an ideologically polarized party system in the United States. Paul Pierson of the University of California, Berkeley described Red Fighting Blue as “path-breaking” and “brilliant,” while Alan Abramowitz of Emory University wrote that “anyone interested in understanding American politics in the 21st century will find David Hopkins’ analysis of the geographic underpinnings of our polarized politics to be extremely helpful." Red Fighting Blue was rated "essential” and named an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Magazine.

R. Shep Melnick

R. Shep Melnick
Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics and co-chair of the Harvard Program on Constitutional Government, BC Professor of Political Science

He is the author of The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education, (Brookings, 2018), Between the Lines: Interpreting Welfare Rights (Brookings,1994), and Regulation and the Courts: The Case of the Clean Air Act (Brookings, 1983), as well as many articles on courts, agencies, and public policy. In 2012 he received the American Political Science Association Law and Courts Section’s “Lasting Contribution” award. He received his BA and PhD from Harvard, and taught at Harvard and Brandeis before moving to Boston College. He has also been a Research Associate at Brookings, President of the New England Political Science Association, and an elected member of the NH House of Representatives.

Kay L. Schlozman

Kay L. Schlozman
J. Joseph Moakley Endowed Professor of Political Science at Boston College

Among her professional activities, she has served as Secretary of the American Political Science Association and as chair of the APSA’s organized section on Elections, Public Opinion and Voting Behavior. She is the winner of the APSA’s 2006 Frank Goodnow Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession of Political Science; the 2016 Samuel Eldersveld Career Achievement Award; and the American Political Science Association’s 2018 Warren E. Miller Lifetime Achievement Award, which honors an outstanding career of intellectual accomplishment and service to the profession in the field of elections, public opinion, and voting behavior. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

 


 
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Author Meets Critics:  

Oliver Wendell Holmes: Willing Servant of an Unknown God

by Catharine Wells

Monday, November 16, 2020 | 6:00PM | Panel Discussion, Webinar

Registration is required. Zoom link will be sent before the day of the event.

Justice Holmes was a pivotal figure in American law. On the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and on the Supreme Court of the United States, he was a towering figure, writing many important opinions that are an integral part of the legal canon we study in the Twenty First Century. Unfortunately, his importance to American Law has led scholars to disregard the depth of his philosophical and spiritual views. This book explores these views and describes the intellectual context that formed them. The result is a fuller picture of the man and of the possibility he poses of leading a meaningful life in the profession of law.

Join the Clough Center for a talk with Catharine Wells, Author and Professor of Law at Boston College.

Panelists include:

Margaret Jane Radin, Henry King Ransom Professor of Law, Emerita, at the University of Michigan Law School
Scott Brewer, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Gregg Fried, Professor of Philosophy, Boston College

Free and open to the public.


 
Franita Tolson

Register for Webinar

In Congress We Trust?

Enforcing Voting Rights from the Founding to the Jim Crow Era

With Franita Tolson

Friday, November 13, 2020 | 12:00PM-12:55PM | Webinar

Registration is required. Zoom link will be sent before the day of the event.

Please join Professor Mary Bilder and Professor Dan Farbman as they welcome Franita Tolson, Vice Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at USC Gould School of Law, to discuss her forthcoming book and the election.

Following the discussion will be a Q&A session.

Free and open to the public.


 
Nicole Philips

Register for Webinar

"We The People" in Putting America First

RACE, RELIGION, AND THE MEASURE OF AMERICAN PROGRESS

Thursday October 29, 2020 | 6:00PM | Webinar

Registration is required. Zoom link will be sent before the day of the event

Join the Clough Center for a virtual lecture and Q&A Session with Dr. Nichole Renée Phillips.

In a now classic and eponymous essay, W.E.B. Du Bois offers his interpretation of the meaning of progress. Yet, what he identifies as (American) progress is marked by paradox and irony. “We the People” is an enduring symbol for U.S. nationality and peoplehood. This lecture explores this constitutional and civic concept as metaphorical for American national identity and exceptionalism. It also questions it as a steadfast ideal for American progress especially from Du Boisian and contemporary black and white racialized perspectives on nationhood while considering its strength for redeeming a racially polarized America.

Free and open to the public.


 
Linda McClain

Who's the Bigot? Learning from Conflicts over Marriage and Civil Rights Law

A Panel Discussion with Linda McClain

Tuesday, October 20, 2020 | 6:00PM | Webinar

Registration is required. Zoom link will be sent before the day of the event

Linda McClain
Robert Kent Professor of Law
Boston University School of Law

Other Panelists Include:
Katharine Young (BC Law)
Kim Rubenstein (University of Canberra)
Daniel Kanstroom (moderator) (BC Law)

Free and open to the public.


 
Martha Jones

Register for Webinar

Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, & Insisted on Equality for All

A Conversation with Professor Martha Jones

Friday, October 16, 2020 | 12:00PM-1:00PM | Webinar

Registration is required. Zoom link will be sent before the day of the event

Please join Professor Mary Bilder and Professor Dan Farbman as they welcome Martha S. Jones, the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at The Johns Hopkins University.

Professor Jones is the author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All (2020) and Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America (2018), winner of the Organization of American Historians Liberty Legacy Award for the best book in civil rights history, the American Historical Association Littleton-Griswold Prize for the best book in American legal history, and the American Society for Legal History John Phillip Reid book award for the best book in Anglo-American legal history.

Free and open to the public.

Cover art credit: Charlie Palmer


 
DemocracyReform-speakers

The Case for Masks

Presentation by Dean Hashimoto, MD, JD
Associate Professor, Boston College Law School
Chief Medical Officer, Workplace Health and Wellness, Mass General Brigham

Wednesday, October 14, 2020 | 2:00PM-3:00PM | Webinar

Registration is required. Zoom link will be sent before the day of the event

Free and open to the public.


 
DemocracyReform-speakers

Democracy Reform: What is it? Why do we need it?

Good Governance Project, Inaugural Kick-off Panel

Thursday, October 1, 2020 | 12:00PM-1:30PM | Webinar

Registration is required. Zoom link will be sent before the day of the event

Moderator: Vincent Rougeau, Dean of BC Law

With Panelists:

State Senator Jamie Eldridge, Senate chair of
Judiciary Committee & Vice-chair of Election Laws Committee

Zach Wamp, Former member of U.S. Congress from Tennessee. Advisor to Issue One, and Co-Chair of the ReFormers Caucus

Jeff Clements, President of American Promise,
Former MA Asst. AG & partner at a major Boston firm

Sara Eskrich, Executive Director of Democracy Found Former Madison, WI city councilor

Free and open to the public.


 
We the Women

The Equal Rights Amendment: A Constitution Day Conversation

Friday September 18, 2020 | 12:00 PM | Webinar

Registration is required. Zoom link will be sent before the day of the event

Please join Professor Mary Bilder as she welcomes Professor and Dean Julie Suk and Professor Katharine Young to discuss the Equal Rights Amendment. Professor Suk is author of the just published, We the Women: The Unstoppable Mothers of the Equal Rights Amendment. Professor Young is the editor of the Public Law of Gender (Cambridge University Press, 2016) (with Kim Rubenstein).

Julie Chi-hye Suk is Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Liberal Studies and Dean for Master’s Programs at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). She is also a Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School.

Katharine Young is Professor of Law at Boston College Law School. She is the editor of The Future of Economic and Social Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and the author of Constituting Economic and Social Rights (Oxford, 2012).

Mary Bilder is Founders Professor of Law at Boston College Law School and the author of the forthcoming, The Lady and George Washington: Female Genius in the Age of the Constitution.

Free and open to the public.