Retired US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will join three distinguished law school deans, including Vincent Rougeau of Boston College Law School, as part of a symposium on “Law Schools and the Education of Democratic Citizens” to be held April 2 at the Law School.
Also appearing at the event, which takes place at 10 a.m. in the East Wing Ropes and Gray Conference Center (room 115) will be Harvard Law School Dean and Jeremiah Smith Jr. Professor Martha Minow and Timothy Macklem, head of School of Law and professor of jurisprudence at King’s College London.
O’Connor became the first female to sit on the US Supreme Court justice when she was confirmed in 1981, after being nominated as an associate justice by President Ronald Reagan. During her quarter-century of service on the court, O’Connor participated in high-profile rulings on the use of school vouchers for religious schools, sexual orientation as a basis for selecting Boy Scouts troop leaders, the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill regulating “soft money” contributions, and several abortion-related cases, among other decisions.
Minow is an expert in human rights and advocacy for members of racial and religious minorities and for women, children, and persons with disabilities. She also writes and teaches about privatization, military justice, and ethnic and religious conflict.
Macklem’s principal research interests are in the philosophical foundations of certain fundamental political rights and freedoms.
Rougeau, who became BC Law dean in 2011, is a national expert on Catholic social teaching and the role of moral and religious values in law making and public policy. His current academic research focuses on global migration and multicultural citizenship, with a special emphasis on the challenges posed by religious pluralism.
Registration is now closed for the event, which is being held as part of the University’s Sesquicentennial celebration. See www.bc.edu/150.