Upcoming talks at the AALS Annual Meeting

I will be speaking on three panels at the American Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting in San Francisco next week. All three are on Thursday, January 5:

"Federal Power Over Immigration," 8:30-10:15 AM: This panel will focus on various disputes over the extent of federal and state power over immigration—an issue that is even more timely with the advent of the incoming Trump administration. I was the lead organizer of this panel, and will moderate as well as speak. The other speakers will be Josh Blackman (South Texas College of Law), Jennifer Chacon (UC Irvine), Jill Family (Widener), and Anil Kalhan (Drexel). My remarks will focus on the general scope of federal power over immigration under the Constitution (which I argue is much narrower than conventionally assumed), and may also briefly discuss constitutional issues related to sanctuary cities.

"Responding to Fisher v. Texas," 1:30-3:15 PM: This panel focuses on the Supreme Court's important decision on affirmative action in higher education in Fisher v. University of Texas II (2016). The other panelists are Richard Ford (Stanford), Melissa Hart (Colorado), Richard Sander (UCLA), and Erika Wilson (University of North Carolina). The moderator will be Bradley Areheart (University of Tennessee). Ford, Hart, and Wilson are leading academic defenders of affirmative action, while Sander is one of the leading critics. I too take a generally negative view of racial preferences in higher education. I offered some thoughts on Fisher II here.

"The Original Scope of State and Federal Power Over Immigration," 10:30-11:45 AM: This is the title of the short presentation I will give at a panel on works in progress, at the Federalist Society faculty conference, which runs at the same time and location as the main AALS meeting. It will give an overview of my work on why the original meaning of the Constitution does not give the federal government any general power to restrict immigration. I am in the process of writing an extensive article on this subject.

It is quite possible that I will be the only speaker at the AALS convention who will be giving presentations critical of both immigration restrictions and racial preferences in higher education. But, however unusual, I think this combination of views is both right and logically consistent.

More information on all three panels is available in the AALS meeting program. I look forward to seeing Volokh Conspiracy readers and other academic friends at the conference.