Reading Room – The Blackacre Times

With the 68th installment of the Henry J. Miller Distinguished Lecture Series right around the corner, it’s a great time to revisit some highlights from previous Miller lectures. Recently, the law library has been digitizing programs from the earliest Miller lectures, so these materials are more accessible than ever. This is an ongoing project, so watch this space for additional updates as the archive grows.

Although we have been unable to find a program for Murray L. Schwartz’s inaugural Miller Lecture, we have digitized the program for the second lecture, and it’s a doozy, featuring Justice Antonin Scalia, who had at the time just wrapped up his first year on the Supreme Court.

The Miller series has had the good fortune to feature a few Supreme Court justices. We’ve digitized the program for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s 12th Miller Lecture in 1992. In addition to that, the law library’s own Alison Guffey memorably wrote on this very blog about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s 32nd Miller Lecture, which was delivered in 2003. You can also find a transcription of Justice John Paul Stevens’s 53rd Miller Lecture, from 2014, in the GSU Law Review’s archives.

We’ve also had some other notable jurists from other courts speak, including Judge A. Leon Higgenbotham of the Third Circuit for the 4th Miller Lecture in 1988 and Judge Patricia McGowan Wald of the D.C. Circuit for the 7th Miller Lecture in 1990.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Miller Lecture series has also featured many scholars. In the early days, the series did an especially good job of providing feminist legal scholars with a forum. These include Herma Hill Kay, a co-author (along with the aforementioned Justice Ginsburg) of the first casebook on sex-based discrimination, who gave the 6th Miller Lecture in 1989, and Nadine Strossen, the first woman to lead the ACLU, who gave the 15th Miller Lecture in 1994.

Exploring the law library’s Miller archives is a great way to learn more about the history of GSU Law, while also getting to know some of the nation’s most influential scholars and jurists. We will continue this proud tradition at the next Miller Lecture, when Election Law scholar Rick L. Hasen discusses “A Real Right to Vote.” Don’t miss it!

The Center for Law, Health, and Society and the Law Library are excited to bring you Bioethics: Inclusive Voices, a series of short, high-quality videos exploring the diversity of the bioethics field.

Professor Leslie Wolf organized the project, which was funded by the Greenwall Foundation. Like so many of us, she had to adapt to the changing circumstances of Covid-19, turning what had first been conceived as a series of speakers into an innovative series of 6-12 minute videos on important yet under-discussed issues within bioethics.

_{Professor Leslie Wolf was the principal investigator for the project.}

The videos fall into two distinct groups: ‘Career Journeys’ and ‘Diverse Scholars’. The former relay the personal stories of diverse scholars who pursued bioethics from different starting points, such as student activism or the practice of medicine. According to Wolf, the goal here was “to encourage more students form diverse background to consider bioethics as a career.”

In comparison, the “Diverse Scholars’ videos address a wide variety of diversity-related bioethics topics. Some are filled with highly practical insights, such as Fordham Professor Kimini Paul-Emile’s Dealing with Racist Patients, while others focus on vital big-picture issues, such as Professor Anderson’s Health Injustices Caused by Segregation and Housing.

A still from Professor Anderson's Health Injustice Caused by Segregation and Housing video. — _{A still from Professor Courtney Anderson’s Health Injustices Caused by Segregation and Housing video.}

Although many different audiences will find these videos intriguing and useful, they are primarily intended as resources for teachers, at both the graduate and undergraduate level. As such, each features a set of discussion questions, as well as a list of resources for further exploration. Moreover, the high production quality on display here–in the form of the appealing visual aids that accompany each speaker and the professional sound throughout the series–will help ensure that students are fully engaged.

Bioethics: Inclusive Voices is one of the many great resources you’ll find in the Law Library’s “Reading Room,” our home for faculty scholarship, video recordings of important GSU Law events, historical law school materials, and much more. Check it out!