Law vs. Antisemitism Conference 2023: Call for Papers

 CALL FOR PAPERS: 2^nd Annual Law vs. Antisemitism Conference (2023)

Lewis & Clark Law School, in association with the Lewis & Clark Law Review and the Law vs. Antisemitism Project, are proud to sponsor the 2nd Annual Law vs. Antisemitism Conference, to be held March 26-27 at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. Conveners are David Schraub (Lewis & Clark), Robert Katz (Indiana University), and Diane Kemker (Southern University). The keynote speakers will include Eric K. Ward, Executive Director of the Western States Center and one of the nation’s foremost experts on the connection between antisemitism and White supremacy, as well as Steven M. Freeman, Vice President of Civil Rights and Director of Legal Affairs for the Anti-Defamation League. The Conference will begin on the afternoon of Sunday, March 26, and run throughout the day Monday, March 27, 2023.

The conference is interdisciplinary, and we welcome submissions on the intersection of law and antisemitism from academics and practitioners of all backgrounds and all statuses. Selected articles presented at the conference will be published as a symposium issue in Volume 27, Issue 4 of the Lewis & Clark Law Review (forthcoming in 2023).

Possible topics for conference presentations and papers may include, but are not limited to:

• Contending definitions of antisemitism itself (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), Nexus, Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA))
• Legal history as it relates to the regulation of Jewish immigrants and Jews in colonial and antebellum America
• Title VII and employment anti-discrimination law as a tool against antisemitism
• Antisemitism in the legal profession
• Intersections of antisemitism and anti-trans or homophobic movements
• Jewish involvement/antisemitism in civil rights movements, including BLM
• Holocaust reparations
• First Amendment speech issues (hate speech online and elsewhere, Holocaust denialism)
• First Amendment religious freedom issues as these relate to Jews and Judaism, including Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause controversies
• Implications of recent Supreme Court decisions on abortion, guns, education, religious liberty, or other matters as they relate to Jewish equality
• Jews and Whiteness, Jewish Anti-Black racism/Black antisemitism
• Antisemitism and White nationalism/White supremacy
• Antisemitism and antisemitic laws in American legal history
• Intersectional issues (Jews as a religious/ethnic group; LBGTQ Jews; Black Jews, Jewish women)
• The use of zoning and land-use law by and against Jewish communities, the regulation of physical space for Jews in America
• The history of Jewish lawyers and organizations involved in impact litigation in cases involving Jews and others
• The legal relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism
• BDS and Israel boycotts on campus and by state/local governments, international boycott law as applied to Israel

If you are interested in presenting, please submit a one-page Abstract to lawvsantisemitism2023@gmail.com. Any questions can be sent to the conference organizers at dschraub@lclark.edu, rokatz@iupui.edu, and/or diane.klein@sulc.edu. Abstracts will be reviewed on a rolling basis but are due by October 1, 2023. We hope to be able to offer some travel grant support to cover expenses associated with attendance at the conference (plane/train fare, hotel, childcare) for persons who lack institutional sources of funding.

If you are interested in having your paper considered for the Law Review symposium issue, please indicate this in the abstract. Authors seeking to have their paper included in the symposium issue should have a full draft completed by February, 2023.

Law vs. Antisemitism Project Workshop for Legal Educators: Sunday, March 26, 2023

The 2nd Annual Law vs. Antisemitism Conference is part of a larger project which includes the development of a law school course in law and antisemitism and the creation of a first-of-its-kind casebook to support the course. If you are a legal educator and would be interested in participating in any part of this project, including Syllabus and curriculum development, casebook chapter creation or review, please consider arriving early to join the Workshop. If you are interested in participating in the Workshop, please indicate this in the email accompanying your Abstract, or send a separate message to Diane Kemker (diane.klein@sulc.edu) no later than October 1, 2022.