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Penn Law celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act

October 31, 2014

Over the next several months, Penn Law will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with a series of lectures, pan...
Over the next several months, Penn Law will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with a series of lectures, panels, and conferences.

Penn Law and the University of Pennsylvania will be hosting a series of events highlighting the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Penn Law and the University of Pennsylvania will be hosting a series of events highlighting the history of the struggle for equality in America and the work being done today to make equality a reality.

On November 3, David Lopez, General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, delivered a lecture, “Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.” Lopez discussed his work at the Commission to eradicate workplace discrimination. As General Counsel of the EEOC, Lopez leads the Commission’s litigation wing, which asserts individuals’ freedom from discrimination in the workplace. Lopez also discussed the agency’s history and the struggle for workplace equality in the United States.

The event was co-sponsored by the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association (APALSA), the Black Law Student Association (BLSA), the Jewish Law Students Association (JLSA), the Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA), the Muslim Law Students Association (MLSA), the Journal of Law and Social Change (JLASC), and the Civil Rights Law Project (CRLP).

On November 20, Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, delivered the Honorable A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. Memorial Lecture with a talk titled “Matters of Race: Brown, Ferguson and the Unfinished Civil Rights Agenda.”

Ifill is the author of the critically acclaimed book On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century, and her successful litigation includes the landmark Voting Rights Act case Houston Lawyers’ Association v. Attorney General of Texas.

The Higginbotham Lecture was instituted in 1989 in honor of Judge Higginbotham’s contributions to the American legal and scholarly communities. The annual lecture brings to campus a distinguished scholar or public servant whose work focuses on an issue, event, or personality in the African American community of either historical or contemporary interest in the areas of history, social justice, or law.

On December 4 and 5, the Africana Studies department at Penn will host the Symposium on Race and Poverty.

On January 14, Penn Law faculty members will participate in the panel “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 at 50: Looking Back and Looking Ahead.” The panel will include Wendell Pritchett, Interim Dean and Presidential Professor; Sophia Z. Lee, Professor of Law and History; Serena Mayeri, Professor of Law and History; and Tobias Barrington Wolff, Professor of Law.

And on January 24 and 25, Penn Law’s Black Law Students Association will sponsor the Sadie T.M. Alexander Commemorative Conference, which will examine the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Shelby County decision.

Dr. Alexander was the first African-American woman in the United States to earn a PhD in economics and, in 1927, the first African American woman to graduate from Penn Law. She went on to serve as a member of President Harry Truman’s Commission on Civil Rights and was the first commissioner of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Rights.

In addition to marking the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 2014 is also the 25th anniversary of the Toll Public Interest Center at Penn Law. Through led projects such as the Civil Rights Law Project, the Penn Law Immigrant Rights Project, and Students Against Gender-Based Exploitation, TPIC has been helping Penn Law students use their legal training to work toward a fairer, more equal society.

Follow #Civilrights50 to stay current on the latest tweets commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.