Please join the American Constitution Society on Friday, October 19 at 12:15pm in Room F for a conversation with Alderman Ameya Pawar and Professor Daniel Hemel.

Ameya Pawar is alderman for the 47th Ward of the City of Chicago and the first Asian-American member of the Chicago City Council. In 2018, Alderman Pawar introduced legislation to pilot Universal Basic Income in the City of Chicago. Alderman Pawar was named chair of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Resilient Families Task Force which will explore a universal basic income pilot, modernization of the earned income tax credit, and other policies. Alderman Pawar is one of eight University of Chicago Institute of Politics Pritzker Fellows for the Fall Quarter 2018.

Professor Daniel Hemel is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Law School. His research focuses on taxation, nonprofit organizations, administrative law, and federal courts. Professor Hemel served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Elena Kagan on the US Supreme Court, Judge Michael Boudin on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and Judge Sri Srinivasan on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Professor Hemel also served as visiting counsel at the Joint Committee on Taxation.

With cosponsorship from the Human Rights Law Society.

Join members of the UChicago Law Admissions Team at the LSAC Atlanta Forum.

Voter Registration Wine Mess co-sponsored by Electoral Reform Society and ACS 

Each session of Mindfulness for Law Students will feature a key concept about the benefits of mindfulness, followed by a guided meditation. Led by Robin Ross, Executive Director of the Doctoroff Business and Leadership Program.

Join members of the UChicago Law Admissions Team at the Vanderbilt University Law School Fair. 

Join members of the UChicago Law Admissions Team at the University of Utah. 

"Outsourcing the Board"
A Conversation with M. Todd Henderson, Michael J. Marks Professor of Law

Join Professor Henderson for a discussion of his recent book, Outsourcing the Board, with Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA). The book ventures to change the conversation about corporate governance by examining the origins, roles, and performance of boards with a simple question in mind: why does the law require governance to be delivered through individual board members? While tracing the development of boards from quasi-political bodies through the current "monitoring" role, the authors find the reasons for this requirement to be wanting. Instead, they propose that corporations be permitted to hire other business associations—known as "Board Service Providers"—to provide governance services. Just as corporations hire law, accounting, and consulting firms, so too should they be permitted to hire governance firms, a small change that could dramatically increase board accountability and enable governance to be delivered more efficiently.

12 p.m.: Registration and lunch
12:30 p.m.: Program and Q&A
1:30 p.m.: Networking

Please RSVP below by Monday, October 15.  
 
For special assistance or needs, please contact Andrew Epps.

Special thanks to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz for its support of this event.

Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Huq discuss How to Save a Constitutional Democracy. They will be joined in conversation by William Howell. A Q&A and signing will follow the event.

About the book: Democracies are in danger. Around the world, a rising wave of populist leaders threatens to erode the core structures of democratic self rule. In the United States, the election of Donald Trump marked a decisive turning point for many. What kind of president calls the news media the “enemy of the American people,” or sees a moral equivalence between violent neo-Nazi protesters in paramilitary formation and residents of a college town defending the racial and ethnic diversity of their homes? Yet, whatever our concerns about the current president, we can be assured that the Constitution offers safeguards to protect against lasting damage—or can we?

How to Save a Constitutional Democracy mounts an urgent argument that we can no longer afford to be complacent. Drawing on a rich array of other countries’ experiences with democratic backsliding, Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Z. Huq show how constitutional rules can either hinder or hasten the decline of democratic institutions. The checks and balances of the federal government, a robust civil society and media, and individual rights—such as those enshrined in the First Amendment—do not necessarily succeed as bulwarks against democratic decline. Rather, Ginsburg and Huq contend, the sobering reality for the United States is that, to a much greater extent than is commonly realized, the Constitution’s design makes democratic erosion more, not less, likely. Its structural rigidity has had the unforeseen consequence of empowering the Supreme Court to fill in some details—often with doctrines that ultimately facilitate rather than inhibit the infringement of rights. Even the bright spots in the Constitution—the First Amendment, for example—may have perverse consequences in the hands of a deft communicator, who can degrade the public sphere by wielding hateful language that would be banned in many other democracies. But we—and the rest of the world—can do better. The authors conclude by laying out practical steps for how laws and constitutional design can play a more positive role in managing the risk of democratic decline.