Michigan Student Chapter
Speakers:
Speakers:
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Prof. Samuel Bagenstos, who serves as professor of law, specializes in civil rights law, public law, and litigation. From 2009-2011, he was a political appointee in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the number-two official in the Civil Rights Division. His accomplishments included the promulgation of the 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act regulations—the first comprehensive update of those regulations since they were first promulgated in 1991—and the reinvigoration of the Civil Rights Division's enforcement of the Supreme Court's decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which guarantees people with disabilities the right to live and receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate. He led the negotiations of significant Olmstead v. L.C., which guarantees people with disabilities the right to live and receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate. He led the negotiations of significant Olmsteadsettlements with the states of Delaware and Georgia, which guarantee appropriate, community-based services to thousands of people with disabilities. He also personally argued major cases in federal district courts and courts of appeals.
As an academic, Prof. Bagenstos has published articles in journals such as the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the California Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and many others. He also has published two books: Law and the Contradictions of the Disability Rights Movement (2009, Yale University Press); and Disability Rights Law: Cases and Materials (2010, Foundation Press). In his "spare time," Prof. Bagenstos remains an active appellate and Supreme Court litigator in civil rights and federalism cases. In one of the most notable cases he has argued, United States v. Georgia, 546 U.S. 151 (2006), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld, as applied to his client's case, the constitutionality of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Prof. Bagenstos has also testified before Congress on several occasions, including in support of the Fair Pay Restoration Act, the ADA Amendments Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, as well as on the application of the ADA to advancing technology and the problem of mental illness in prisons.
Prior to joining the Michigan Law faculty, Prof. Bagenstos was a professor of law, and, from 2007 to 2008, also associate dean for research and faculty development at Washington University School of Law. He has been on the faculty of Harvard Law School, and was a visiting professor at UCLA School of Law. He clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the Ninth Circuit for one year, and then joined the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Following that position, he served as law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1993, Prof. Bagenstos earned his JD, magna cum laude, from Harvard, where he received the Fay Diploma and was articles office co-chair for the Harvard Law Review.
Professor, University of Illinois College of Law
Robin Fretwell Wilson is the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
A scholar in family law, bioethics and law and religion, Professor Wilson has worked extensively on behalf of state and federal law reform efforts in each realm.
Across two decades, she has worked to secure laws protecting the autonomy of patients to decide when they will be used to teach intimate exams to medical students, laws now in place in 22 states—sixteen of which have been enacted since 2019.
Professor Wilson is known for bridging differences in the culture war. In 2015, she spent a month in residence with the Utah legislature, helping Utah state lawmakers to pass anti-discrimination legislation that balances religious liberty and LGBT rights. In 2019, Professor Wilson assisted the governor of Utah to craft regulations banning gay conversion therapy. In 2019, she also aided U.S. Representative Chris Stewart with portions of the “Fairness for All” he introduced in Congress. A member of the American Law Institute and a Fulbright Specialist, Professor Wilson has served as a consultant to the United Arab Emirates’ Judicial Department as they sought to create a parallel court system for the adjudication by expatriates of family law matters using the laws of their home country or of their faith traditions.
Professor Wilson is the author of 20 books, including her 2018 book, Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground, with Yale University Professor William Eskridge, Jr., which is now in paperback at Cambridge University Press. Her other books include: The Contested Place of Religion in Family Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018, ed.), Reconceiving the Family: Critical Reflections on the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution (Cambridge University Press, 2006, ed.); The Handbook of Children, Culture & Violence (Sage Publications, 2006, with Nancy Dowd and Dorothy Singer, eds.); Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, with Douglas Laycock and Anthony Picarello, eds.); Health Law and Bioethics: Cases in Context (Aspen, 2008, with Joan Krause, Sandra Johnson, and Richard Saver, eds.); Domestic Relations: Cases and Materials, 8th edition (Foundation Press, 2017, with Walter Wadlington and Raymond C. O’Brien); and Understanding Family Law, 4th edition (LexisNexis, 2013, with John DeWitt Gregory and Peter N. Swisher). Her articles have appeared in the Boston College Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Illinois Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, San Diego Law Review, U.C. Davis Law Review, and Washington and Lee Law Review, as well as in numerous peer-reviewed journals.
In 2010 and again in 2016, Professor Wilson was ranked among the Top Ten Family Law Scholars in the United States for scholarly impact. She ranks among the Top 10% of Authors in all time downloads on the Social Science Research Network. Professor Wilson’s scholarship has been cited by the Fifth, Seventh and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, lower federal courts, and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, and Washington.
Professor Wilson’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. News and World Report, ABA Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, Chicago Tribune, CNN Headline News, Good Morning America, ABC News, CBS News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence Magazine, The American Prospect, People Magazine, The American Conservative, The Australian, and Al Jazeera, among others. She has presented her research across the world, including the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, China, Israel, Qatar, the Netherlands, Italy, England, Wales, Poland, Spain, Serbia, Japan, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, and France.
Professor Wilson has seven times been honored for her work on innovative laws that respect all persons. In 2007, she received the Citizen’s Legislative Award for her work on changing Virginia’s informed consent law. In 2018, Professor Wilson received the Thomas L. Kane Religious Freedom Award from the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, which is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of religious liberty for all and who has contributed in significant ways to the defense of religious freedom in the public square.
In 2018, Professor Wilson was honored as one of the 150 for 150: Celebrating the Accomplishments of Women at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for its sesquicentennial celebration. In 2020, Professor Wilson received the 2020 Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award for Advocacy for LGBTQ Affairs, a university-wide honor given by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
