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Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard: What's Next?
This event has concluded.
Sep 2 2025
Tuesday 12:00 p.m. EDT    

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard: What's Next?

Florida Student Chapter

Holland Hall 360
309 Village Dr
Gainesville, FL 32611
Speakers:
Devon Westhill • Danaya Wright
Topics:
Constitution • Civil Rights • Affirmative Action
Sponsors:
Florida Student Chapter
  • In-Person Event
Overcriminalization and Federal Prosecutorial Discretion
This event has concluded.
Apr 8 2024
Monday 12:00 p.m. EDT    

Overcriminalization and Federal Prosecutorial Discretion

Florida Student Chapter

University of Florida Levin College of Law
309 Village Drive
Gainesville, FL 32611
Speakers:
Henry Charles Whitaker
Sponsors:
Florida Student Chapter
  • In-Person Event
Securing & Succeeding in Judicial Clerkships
This event has concluded.
Mar 25 2024
Monday 12:00 p.m. EDT    

Securing & Succeeding in Judicial Clerkships

Florida Student Chapter

University of Florida Levin College of Law
309 Village Drive
Gainesville, FL 32611
Speakers:
Thomas P. Barber • Kathryn Kimball Mizelle
Topics:
Professional Responsibility & Legal Education
Sponsors:
Florida Student Chapter
  • In-Person Event
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Speaker Information
Devon Westhill

Devon Westhill

Biography

Devon Westhill is the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Westhill on October 7, 2025.

Westhill returns to the USDA where he previously headed the civil rights office as Deputy Assistant Secretary in President Trump’s first term. His previous government appointments also include service at the U.S. Department of Labor, liaison to the Administrative Conference of the U.S., and liaison to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Prior to returning to government service, Westhill was President and General Counsel of a nonprofit civil rights organization.

Westhill has testified on civil rights matters before Congress, federal agencies, and as an expert witness in federal court. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio and TV programs, and he is frequently quoted in print publications, and his writing has appeared in numerous national outlets. A U.S. Navy veteran, Westhill earned his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his JD from the University of Florida.

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Speaker Information
Danaya Wright

Danaya Wright

T. Terrell Sessums and Gerald Sohn Professor in Constitutional Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law

Biography

Professor Wright joined the Levin College of Law in 1998 and serves as the T. Terrell Sessums and Gerald Sohn Professor in Constitutional Law. At UF Law she has taught various subjects including, constitutional law, property, trusts and estates, legal history, feminist theory, constitutional law of property, and theories of property. As a legal historian, her research has delved into 19th century English divorce and marriage law, 19th century American property rights involving railroads and utilities, and women’s rights and constitutional protections in the 19th and early 20th centuries. She has written extensively, including several book chapters, on recreational trails and rails-to-trails conversions, on the history of English family law, on the Equal Rights Amendment, on constitutional takings law, on the logistics of drone delivery systems, and on the necessity for legal reforms in intestacy and probate law to better address land loss and the heirs’ property problem. Professor Wright has written dozens of articles, published in journals as diverse as the Iowa Law Review, the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, the Columbia Journal of Gender and the Law, Environmental Law, the Wisconsin Law Review, the Australia Journal of Legal History and Hawwa: Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic world. She has written two chapters, on transfer-on-death deeds and on rail-trail conversions, for the preeminent property treatise, Powell on Real Property. And her empirical work on testate and intestate distributions has earned her a grant from the ACTEC foundation, as well as acclaim in the probate and trusts field. Her articles have tackled child custody in England; religion, law and women’s rights in India; the ratification issues in the Equal Rights Amendment; and the property rights in a drone delivery highway. She has authored a popular Trusts and Estates casebook and co-authored a skills book for introducing students to the practice of trusts and estates and a chapter in a forthcoming Disaster Law Handbook. Her most recent book is on the noted Chancery case in which the Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, lost custody of his children because of his revolutionary and atheistic writings. And her work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous federal and state courts.

Wright has taught at the Arizona State University Law School, Indiana University School of Law at Indianapolis, and Georgetown Law Center. She received a B.A. in English Literature from Cornell University, an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Arizona, an M.A. in Liberal Education from St. John’s College, a J.D. from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University. She is also serving as the co-director of the Center for Governmental Responsibility, the largest and oldest public policy law center in Florida.

 

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Speaker Information
Henry Charles Whitaker

Henry Charles Whitaker

Solicitor General of Florida

Biography

Henry Whitaker became Florida’s Solicitor General in July 2021. He came to the position after four years of serving in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, including as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, where he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General, and cabinet secretaries on a range of important and complex legal issues. Before that, Solicitor General Whitaker worked on the Appellate Staff of the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice for almost nine years, arguing more than 40 appeals in the federal appellate courts. He clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit after graduating magna cum laude from both Harvard Law School and Yale College.

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Speaker Information
Thomas P. Barber

Thomas P. Barber

U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida

Biography

Prior to joining the federal bench, Judge Barber served as a Circuit Judge in the criminal division of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, where he has served since his appointment by the Governor in 2008. As a Circuit Judge he has handled the full range of civil and criminal cases. He previously served for four years as a Hillsborough County Court Judge. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Barber practiced for five years in the trial and business litigation department of Carlton Fields, P.A. He then served as an Assistant Statewide Prosecutor in the Office of Statewide Prosecution and as an Assistant State Attorney for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit. Upon completion of his service as a prosecutor he returned to Carlton Fields, P.A., where his practice focused on business litigation until his appointment to the bench.

 

Judge Barber earned his B.A. from the University of Florida, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

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Speaker Information
Kathryn Kimball Mizelle

Kathryn Kimball Mizelle

United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida

Biography

In November 2020, the Senate confirmed Kathryn Kimball Mizelle as a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida. At age 33, she became the youngest Article III judge in the country. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Mizelle was in private practice at Jones Day, where she focused on complex civil and criminal litigation and appeals. Judge Mizelle previously served at the United States Department of Justice in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, in the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section of the Tax Division, and in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Mizelle has also taught as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.

Judge Mizelle earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Covenant College, and her J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduation, Judge Mizelle served as a law clerk at every level of the federal judiciary: at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, at the D.C. Circuit for Judge Gregory G. Katsas, at the Eleventh Circuit for Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., and at the Middle District of Florida for Judge James S. Moody Jr.

 

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