Salt Blog

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law With Charleston funerals and the Supreme Court same-sex marriage decision occurring today, there are many emotions in the air.  I think of my childhood friend, Reggie Eley.  He was my first best friend – running through…

RBG Jan. 3 2014 letter to SALT June 26, 2015 —On the occasion of its 40th Anniversary celebration and annual awards in 2014, United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sent greetings to the Society of American Law Teachers and reflected on her role in founding the organization…

June 26, 2015 — The Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) hails the United States Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges today.   Since 1974, SALT has advocated for justice, diversity and human rights in legal education and beyond.  In the 1990s, SALT worked against the military’s 1996 ban…

Special Thanks to Dean Eric Janus, Professor Raleigh Levine, and William Mitchell College of Law

The Nominations Committee is currently soliciting nominations for current SALT members to run for one of several upcoming openings on the Board of Governors.  Service on the Board of Governors gives members a close and active opportunity to shape and enforce the policy of SALT designed to fulfill SALT’s basic mission – of making the legal profession more inclusive…

By Benjamin G Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law According to the below article a certain Matthew Waxman is being bruited for the General Counsel job at the NSA. http://www.lawfareblog.com/2015/05/matthew-waxman-to-be-the-new-nsa-general-counsel/ His Columbia Law School bio is more circumspect about his prior government service then the…

March 25, 2015 — The Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) today released a statement regarding recent actions of the University of North Carolina (UNC) Board of Governors to close three centers in the university system, including the Center for Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the UNC School of Law.  In…

The Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) and the Southeast-Southwest People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference are proud to present Breaking in, Staying In: At Every Level, Thursday March 19, 2015, at North Carolina Central University School of Law.

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law Much ado has arisen in recent months about the investor-state dispute settlement provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership international trade agreements being negotiated. Sources one might look to are http://isdsblog.com/,…

Poverty Law: Academic Activism Seattle University School of Law Feb. 19-20, 2016 Call for Proposals: We invite proposals for presentations at a Spring 2016 conference, “Poverty Law: Academic Activism” to be held on Feb. 19-20, 2016, hosted by Seattle University School of Law.  The conference will focus on the…

  By SpearIt Last week, the Supreme Court struck down an Arkansas prison policy that restricted inmates from sporting a half-inch beard.  The prisoner-plaintiff, Gregory Holt, aka Abdul Maalik Muhammad, is particularly interesting since he confounds cultural stereotypes, looking more like someone from Duck Dynasty or the movie Deliverance than…

By SpearIt Last month the Department of Education clarified the eligibility rules for Federal Pell Grant funding. Although Congress barred Pell Grants in 1994 for those confined in “Federal or State Penal institutions,” according to the clarification, these are distinct from “juvenile justice facilities” and “local and…

SALT will testify at a public hearing on the Uniform Bar Examination (UBE) on January 20, 2015 at CUNY School of Law, making the points outlined in this letter. SALT will testify: 1) that New York attorneys have long critiqued the utility and disparate impact on racial minorities of the…

By Sahar Aziz Terrorism aims to invoke mass havoc and fear. Recent attacks in Western cities involved bombings of public buildings, transportation, and marathons, or mass shootings of civilians, conducted by amateur lone wolves. For this reason the calculated assassination of France’s best satirists raises serious concerns about the…

 By SpearIt The media spotlight on Cherif Kouachi’s life rekindles questions about prisons and radicalization. As an alleged participant of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Kouachi has seemingly led many lives. In one incarnation, he was a marijuana-smoking rapper. Later, he would turn jihadi and find himself jailed, awaiting conviction…

Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues (2014 Olive Branch Press, 296 pages) Edited by Marjorie Cohn Shining Light Into the Dark World of US Drone Warfare By Charles Sevilla, Los Angeles Daily Journal, Book Review This book is a compilation of fifteen authors’…

By Marjorie Cohn Reading the 499-page torture report just released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was a disgusting experience. Even after many years of writing books and articles about the Bush torture policy, I was unprepared for the atrocious pattern of crimes our government committed against other…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions This is my most recent first cut at trying to make sense of all that I have read and seen over the past ten years working for criminal prosecution in US…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions “I can’t breathe” is on the t-shirts and in the mouths of demonstrators all over America as they protest the non-indictment of Eric Garner’s killers in New York, the non-indictment of Michael Brown’s…