SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

8:30 - 9:00 AM: Registration and Breakfast

9:00 - 9:30 AM: Welcome Address and Opening Remarks

9:30 - 10:20 AM: Professor Regina Hillman, Challenging Obergefell

Regina Hillman is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. Her scholarship focuses on the progression of and challenges to LGBTQ+ rights. In 2013, Professor Hillman was an organizing member of the Tennessee Marriage Equality Legal Team that challenged Tennessee’s constitutional amendment and statutory law banning the recognition of valid out-of-state same-sex marriages. The Tennessee case, Tanco v. Haslam, was consolidated with Sixth Circuit cases from Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky when the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, becoming Obergefell v. Hodges. On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court held that both bans were unconstitutional, resulting in nationwide marriage equality. Professor Hillman’s article examines ongoing challenges to Obergefell, providing a unique perspective from one of marriage equality’s most dedicated and experienced advocates.

10:20 - 10:30 AM: Break

10:30 - 11:20 AM:  Professor Christopher Parker and Dean Michael Gentithes, Substantive Reliance on Dobbs

Christopher Parker is an Associate Professor of Political Science and the Pre-Law Advisor at the University of Rhode Island, and Michael Gentithes is a Professor & Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of Akron School of Law. Combined, their research involves analyzing the role of criminal procedure and constitutional law, politics, and ideology in decision-making of the American court system. Professor Parker and Dean Gentithes’ co-authored article, Substantive Reliance on Dobbs, examines the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which profoundly shifted the landscape of women’s health care and abortion rights in America. Their article investigates commentator claims that the Dobbs decision, and its history and tradition test for fundamental rights, might lead courts to reverse a host of other substantive due process decisions, take away constitutional rights long-established in Supreme Court precedent, and quickly dismiss any new claims of substantive due process violations. Professor Parker will present their research, empirically demonstrating the effect of Dobbs on substantive due process litigation in federal courts and qualitatively analyzing how courts have changed their analysis of these issues in the post-Dobbs era.

11:20 AM - 12:10 PM:  Professor Montana Martinez, Untethered Liberty: The Supreme Court’s Incoherent Approach to Substantive Due Process After Mahmoud v. Taylor

Montana Martinez is an Assistant Professor of Law at Western New England University School of Law, where his research focuses on the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses. Professor Martinez’s article, Untethered Liberty: The Supreme Court’s Incoherent Approach to Substantive Due Process After Mahmoud v. Taylor, examines the Court’s increasingly ad hoc treatment of substantive due process claims. He argues that the modern Court has abandoned both the disciplined historical inquiry of Washington v. Glucksberg and the broader approach of Obergefell v. Hodges, opting instead for a precedent-averse method that leaves constitutional liberty unmoored. Mahmoud v. Taylor serves as a central case study, illustrating the Court’s refusal to recognize a substantive due process right even when necessary to resolve the dispute, signaling an emerging reluctance to engage the doctrine at all.

12:10 - 1:10 PM: Lunch Break

1:10 - 2:00 PM: Professor Evan Zoldan, Due Process Hearing Rights, Now and Then

Evan Zoldan is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the John W. Stoepler Professor of Law and Values at the University of Toledo College of Law. He is also the Director of Toledo Law's Legal Institute of the Great Lakes. His research focuses on legislation, administrative law, and state and local government issues. Professor Zoldan will present his article, Due Process Hearing Rights, Now and Then, which examines the longstanding constitutional right, and exceptions, to an individualized hearing. Professor Zoldan explores the way in which the scope and protective power of the right to a hearing is being tested in the second Trump administration, in which individuals are subjected to the deprivation of rights without notice and an opportunity to challenge the government’s actions.

2:00 - 2:50 PM: Professor Danielle Jefferis, The Fragile Expansion: Reconstructing the Lost Constitutional Trajectory of Pre-trial Detention Conditions

Danielle Jefferis is the Schmid Professor for Excellence in Research and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Nebraska College of Law. She teaches Civil Procedure, Civil Rights Litigation, Prison Law, and Race and the Law. Her research examines constitutional and civil rights law, federal courts, and the law and policy of prison and detention. Professor Jefferis’s symposium presentation of her article, The Fragile Expansion: Reconstructing the Lost Constitutional Trajectory of Pre-trial Detention Conditions, addresses a paradox in contemporary constitutional law—while substantive due process protections have contracted in areas like reproductive rights, due process protections for jail and detention conditions are expanding.

2:50 - 3:00 PM: Break

3:00 - 3:50 PM: Professor Barbara Fitzgerald, Soldier Judges in Civilian Courts: Impact on Due Process in Immigration Courts and Beyond

Barbara Fitzgerald is an Assistant Professor and Legal Studies Coordinator at the University of Memphis College of Liberal Studies and Assistant Externship Coordinator at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. Her article, Soldier Judges in Civilian Courts: Impact on Due Process in Immigration Courts and Beyond, reviews the rules and regulations that govern the ability of Judge Advocate General Officers to practice in civilian courts. This includes a historical review of the restriction of their use within civilian courts, focusing on whether their use violates the Posse Comitatus Act. Professor Fitgerald’s article explains current issues plaguing Immigration Courts, including the causes of the manufactured emergency staffing issue, the intention of using JAG attorneys to serve as Immigration Law Judges, and the impact on the due process rights of the vulnerable populations affected.

3:50 - 4:00 PM: Closing Remarks

4:00 - 5:30 PM: Reception and Cocktail Hour