See below. My apologies to those of you who are members of the AALS Law & Religion Section and who as a result will have already gotten this message.
Mark Mark S. Scarberry Professor of Law Pepperdine Univ. School of Law Call for Proposals "Doing Justice without Doing Harm" Pepperdine University School of Law, Malibu, California March 11-12, 2016 We hope you will join us for the conference discussed below. Mark your calendar, submit a proposal, and forward this message to blogs, list serves, and people who might be interested. Speakers already confirmed include the following: Barbara E. Armacost, Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law. Rabbi Elliot Dorff, Rector and Sol & Anne Dorff Distinguished Service Professor in Philosophy, American Jewish University Brian Fikkert, Professor of Economics and Community Development and the founder and President of the Chalmers Center for Economic Development at Covenant College. Richard W. Garnett, Paul J. Schierl / Fort Howard Corporation Professor of Law and Director, Program on Church, State & Society, Notre Dame Law School Gary Haugen, founder and president of International Justice Mission. Richard H. Sander, economist and Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University and Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia Their topics and bios are at the end of this message. Justice is a central theme in most secular and religious moral traditions, though there are significant disagreements about its content. As Alasdair McIntyre has asked, "Whose Justice?" During some periods of history there has been great optimism that the world was moving in a more just direction, generally followed by periods of great injustice and great disillusionment. (We seem now to be experiencing the latter.) Our conference themes have ancient roots-"do justice" (Micah 6:8) and "do no harm" (Hippocrates). The first theme is a call to do justice and to serve a hurting world. What do our traditions say about justice to the 21st century? What are the great injustices and causes of suffering in our world? How might they be addressed by individuals, religious congregations, NGOs, and governments? A second theme (raised powerfully in Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert's book "When Helping Hurts"} will be how individuals, groups, and laws might avoid doing harm as we attempt to do good. Attempts to help can generate dependence or harm bystanders. The work of governments and NGOs can undercut local institutions like religious congregations and businesses that might address local problems. Laws can have unintended consequences that do greater harm than good. We need to make a difference, but to do so wisely. Please join us for the conversation. Panels of academics and people from a wide variety of organizations will address theory and practice--what works and what does not work. Questions to be addressed might include: - What do our secular and religious traditions teach about justice and its place in the 21st century? - What is the relationship between justice and love? - How can the law best be used to promote the ideals of justice. - What is social justice and what is its relationship with other forms of justice? - What are the greatest injustices in our world and what can we do about them? - What are the greatest injustices in our neighborhoods and what can we do about them? - What are examples of attempts to help the poor which have harmed them? - How can attempts to do justice lead to injustice? - How might we help those in the greatest need without harming them? If you would like to present a paper or organize a panel that fits within this broad range of themes, please submit your proposal by September 15, 2015 via email to jenna.ander...@pepperdine.edu<mailto:jenna.ander...@pepperdine.edu>. Proposals should be two pages maximum and should include a short abstract and a bio. If you have questions about the substance of the conference, contact Bob Cochran robert.coch...@pepperdine.edu<mailto:robert.coch...@pepperdine.edu> or Michael Helfand michael.helf...@pepperdine.edu<mailto:michael.helf...@pepperdine.edu> For questions about the details of the conference, contact Jenna Anderson jenna.ander...@pepperdine.edu<mailto:jenna.ander...@pepperdine.edu> or (310) 506-6978. For information on the conference as it becomes available and to view details of past conferences, see: http://law.pepperdine.edu/nootbaar/annual-conference/ The conference will be co-sponsored by Pepperdine's Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics and its Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies. All our best, Bob Cochran & Michael Helfand Robert F. Cochran, Jr. Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law and Director, Herbert and Elinor Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics Michael A. Helfand Associate Professor of Law and Associate Director, Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies Pepperdine University School of Law 24255 Pacific Coast Highway Malibu, California 90263-4611 "Restorative Justice" Barbara E. Armacost, Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law, teaches civil rights litigation, criminal investigation, torts and First Amendment (religion clauses). Armacost became a lawyer after several years in the nursing profession. She earned a master's degree in theological studies from Regent College at the University of British Columbia and a law degree from the University of Virginia, where she served as notes editor of the Virginia Law Review. After graduation, she clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The following two years she served as attorney adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice. She is the author of numerous articles and essays, including "Crying Out for Justice: Civil Law and the Prophets" in Law and the Bible (Cochran and VanDrunen, eds., 2014, InterVarsity Press) and has taken groups of law students to India with IJM to do justice-related work. "A Jewish Perspective on Social Justice" Rabbi Elliot Dorff, Ph.D. is American Jewish University's Rector and Sol & Anne Dorff Distinguished Service Professor in Philosophy. For more than thirty years as a Visiting Professor, he has taught a course on Jewish law at UCLA School of Law. Rabbi Dorff was awarded the Journal of Law and Religion's Lifetime Achievement Award and holds three honorary doctoral degrees. Rabbi Dorff is Chair of the Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards and served on the editorial committee of Etz Hayim, the new Torah commentary for the Conservative Movement. He has chaired three scholarly organizations: the Academy of Jewish Philosophy, the Jewish Law Association, and the Society of Jewish Ethics. He is also Immediate Past President of the Academy of Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies. "When Helping Hurts" Brian Fikkert is a Professor of Economics and Community Development and the founder and President of the Chalmers Center for Economic Development at Covenant College. He is also coauthor of the best-selling book When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself. Dr. Fikkert earned a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University, specializing in international economics and economic development. He has been a consultant to the World Bank and is the author of numerous articles in both academic and popular journals. Prior to coming to Covenant College, he was a professor at the University of Maryland-College Park and a research fellow at the Center for Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector. "Religious Accommodations and Third Party Harms" Richard W. Garnett is the Paul J. Schierl / Fort Howard Corporation Professor of Law and Director, Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School. He teaches and writes about the freedoms of speech, association, and religion. He is a leading authority on questions and debates regarding the role of religious believers and beliefs in politics and society. He has published widely on these matters, and is the author of dozens of law-review articles and book chapters. His current research project, Two There Are: Understanding the Separation of Church and State, will be published by Cambridge University Press. Professor Garnett clerked for the late Chief Justice of the United States William H. Rehnquist during the Court's 1996 term and also for the late Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Richard S. Arnold. "Ending Impunity: The Indispensable (& Most Intimidating) Challenge Facing the Global Poor Today" Gary Haugen is founder and president of International Justice Mission. Before founding IJM in 1997, Gary was a human rights attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, where he focused on crimes of police misconduct. In 1994, he served as the Director of the United Nations' investigation in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. Gary received a B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard University, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago. His work to protect the poor from violence has been featured by Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, the New Yorker, The Times of India, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, the Guardian and National Public Radio, among many other outlets. He is the author of several books, including Good News About Injustice (Intervarsity Press) and The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence (Oxford University Press). "Functional and Dysfunctional Strategies on Race" Richard H. Sander is an economist and Professor of Law at UCLA's School of Law, where he has taught for over twenty years. He is a nationally known scholar on race and higher education; his 2004 Stanford Law Review article detailing the workings of law school affirmative action and questioning whether it actually hurts minority law students is one of the most widely read law review articles ever written. Sander has also done landmark work on the growth of lawyering in American society, and on the causes and consequences of housing segregation. "The Just Limits of Love" Nicholas Wolterstorff is Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University, Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and Honorary Professor of Australian Catholic University. He graduated from Calvin College in 1953 and received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1956. He taught philosophy at Calvin College from 1959 to 1989, and was on the faculty of Yale Divinity School from 1989 until he retired at the end of 2001. He has been President of the American Philosophical Association (Central Division) and President of the Society of Christian Philosophers. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among the named lectures he has given are the Wilde Lectures at Oxford University and the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews University. His publications include Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton 2008) and Justice in Love (Eerdmans 2011).
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