Bri Murphy, JD Anticipated May 2024, Law & Public Policy Scholar
Since 1965, the Law & Society Association (LSA) has hosted over 2,500 participants from more than 60 countries across 6 continents at its annual meeting and conference. The Temple University Beasley School of Law’s Law & Public Policy program has been well represented at LSA conferences since 2013. A total of twenty Law & Public Policy (L&PP) Scholars represented the program and Temple Law at the 2023 conference, presenting on a broad range of topics including transportation policy, gender, sexuality, education, criminal justice, immigration, and more. The full list of Scholar papers and presentations can be found at the end of this post.
This year’s 47th annual conference took place in the unincorporated U.S. territory, Puerto Rico. This choice of location intentionally reflected the conference’s theme, “separate and unequal,” which turned a clear and critical eye toward the United States’ territorial expansionism of the early 20th century. Territorial expansionism, as a military and political practice, arose from a history of Anglo-American and European colonization and Manifest Destiny and gave rise, in turn, to discriminatory and inequitable treatment of the diverse peoples of such “separate and unequal territories within the United States empire.”
Attending this conference as a law student and L&PP Scholar was an invitation to test the boundaries of the legal profession and envision the law as one element that exists in a reciprocal relationship with the broader social sciences. The interdisciplinary focus of the conference challenged a narrow view of the legal profession as a field that is adversarial in nature and too often oriented to the past. It encouraged an active embracing of the complexities of human life and the sheer creative potential that can exist at the intersections of culture, policy, and the law. Uncovering solutions requires a willingness to look directly at the complicated and often disquieting truths of where we are as a global community, how we got here, and at whose expense. It invites us to share lessons with each other in order to forge new futures together.
In discussing this blog series with a colleague and fellow L&PP Scholar, he articulated the theme of the conference as “bearing witness.” This apt description spoke truth to the underlying thread connecting varied presentations and topics, as well as my experience as an attendee: bearing witness to the state of global inequity and the ways in which the law, lawyers, scholars, and advocates can come together to chart new pathways forward.
The conference itself presented a unique opportunity to not only show the incredible scholarship of Temple’s L&PP Scholars, but to meet and exchange ideas among some of the leading socio-legal scholars from around the world. While there is clear benefit to students, professionals, and academics in attending such a conference (networking, exchanging ideas, professional development, and the unique opportunity to truly connect with a cohort of colleagues and scholars at a particular moment in time), the central motivation for attending was a humanist one. Attendees gathered in acknowledgment of the real-life implications and the lives of people held in the ambiguous and transitory states that the law, oftentimes, struggles to keep or catch up with. Presenters leaned into the human cost that the law can both intentionally and unintentionally exact. They analyzed such liminal spaces and identities into which people are thrown both within and throughout bordered lands, in relationship to the carceral state, as migrating students, as technology and monitoring advances. Surrounded by people who have dedicated their careers and lives to uncovering solutions by better understanding these issues, conferences like the LSA annual meeting can serve as a humbling reminder that no matter what path students choose post-J.D., everyone’s work exists as a part of a greater whole, leading us, with hope, toward a more just and equitable future for all.
The Law & Public Policy program has reinforced the understanding that the ability to have such an impact is not reserved for some faraway point in time after graduation, after the bar, or after career milestones, but instead can, and should, be accessed now. As both future and practicing legal professionals, the social and professional spheres we operate in often provide greater access to networks of and individuals in power, deepen the reserves in our bank of social capital, and thus require that we possess an intimate understanding of our individual and collective responsibility to steward the law in light of its enduring impact on a global people.
True to the conference’s call to action, the L&PP Scholars presented practicable solutions to some of the most pressing issues that arise from the American imperialist legacy of “separate and unequal.” With clarity, L&PP Scholars looked toward the future that they want to be a part of creating and gave poignant and discerning presentations at the conference. The development of such solutions culminated after a year of research, revision, and refinement in the L&PP program, under the guidance of Alumni Mentors, Professor Knauer, and fellow L&PP Scholars. Their scholarship is something to look forward to following for years to come.
The full list of Law & Public Policy Scholars to watch:
Voting Rights and Election Law
Arlo Blaisus, Voting Registration and Federal Housing Assistance: A Practical Solution to Increase Democratic Participation
Patrick Long, Privacy and Politics: A Case for Increased Federal Campaign Finance Disclosure Thresholds
Legislative and Regulatory Reform
Lee Kennedy, Exposing the Invisible Middlemen: Regulating Pharmaceutical Benefit Mangers (PBMs) and Promoting Patient-Centered Care
Carson Taylor, Disarming The Stigma: Promoting a U.S. Policy of No First Use
Megan Palmer, Accessible Autonomous Vehicles as a Guideline Not an Afterthought
Max Toth, A Down Payment on American Rail: Reliable Passenger Rail Investment to Correct a Century of Racist Transportation Policy
Samantha Weber, A Sustainable Reform for Western Water Policy: Because No One Wins When We “Use It or Lose It”
The Criminal Legal & Justice System
Shelby Dolch, Justice Withheld: The Impacts of Bias and Bureaucracy in Executive Clemency on Marginalized Communities
James Dykman, Disarming the Dangerous: Creating a Uniform Disciplinary Policy for Federal Law Enforcement Officer Sexual Misconduct
Aamy Kuldip, How Online Communication Platforms Facilitate Human Trafficking and Rethinking the Websites as Hosts Theory
Hanna Pfeiffer, Placing Limits on E-Carceration
Kemberly D. Viveros, Protecting Black Lives Matter Protesters: Mandating Comprehensive Federal Consumer Data Privacy Laws
Gender, Sexuality, and Education
Carley S. Felzer, A House Divided: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the Failed Promise of Separation Between Church and State
Emily M. Harris, LGBTQ+ Inclusive Education: Developing a National Program for Kindergarten through 12th Grade Students
Emily Lawson, A Gender-Affirming Tax Code
Lucas Masin-Moyer, Reconstructing Federal Education Funding Structures and Pennsylvania’s ‘Hold Harmless Model’ of Education to Better Serve English-Learning Students
Immigration
Joan Fernandez, Twice Exiled: Ending Prolonged Asylee Family Separation
Austin A. Kurtanich, Asylum Application Reform: Supporting Migrants Facing Humanitarian Crisis
Adamari Rodriguez, Immigration Reform: Amnesty a Predated Solution that Advances Economic Development and A Moral Imperative
Marianne A. Uy, Barriers to the American Dream: An Analysis of the International Student Education to Employment Pipeline
This short series of summer blog posts and reflections about the LSA Conference will continue with a synthesis of the immigration-focused solutions presented by L&PP Scholars.