Immigration and Citizenship
January 25, 2008
9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
175 Knight Law Center
15th and Agate Streets
University of Oregon

A one-day symposium was led by 2007-08 Wayne Morse Resident Scholar and Hollis Professor of Law Garrett Epps, featuring Kevin Johnson at the University of California–Davis, Hiroshi Motomura at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, and John Eastman of Chapman University School of Law.

This symposium was a free event and open to the public.

Currently the most debated citizenship issue involves the contested terrain of immigration. This symposium presented several of the nation's leading scholars on constitutional law and immigration policy. Speakers analyzed U.S. migration policy and argued for more openness and attention to the concept of citizenship. The morning panel featured a dialogue on the birthright citizenship guarantee of the 14th Amendment. The afternoon panel included community advocates discussing the politics of immigration policy at a local level.

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SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

9:00 a.m.

Welcome and Introduction

Margaret Hallock
Director, Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics

Margie Paris
Dean, University of Oregon School of Law

Garrett Epps
2007-08 Wayne Morse Center Resident Scholar and Hollis Professor of Law, University of Oregon


Keynote Address: "Opening the Floodgates: Rethinking our Border and Immigration Laws"

Kevin R. Johnson
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and Chicano/a Studies at the University of California–Davis School of Law.

10:00 a.m.   

Dialogue: The Birthright Guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment

Garrett Epps
2007-08 Wayne Morse Center Resident Scholar and Hollis Professor of Law, University of Oregon

John C. Eastman
Dean and Donald P. Kennedy Chair, Chapman University School of Law

Moderated by Professor Ibrahim Gassama, University of Oregon School of Law

11:30 a.m.   

Lunch Break

1:30 p.m.   

Panel Discussion: Immigration Policy and Politics

Hiroshi Motomura
Kenan Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law

Larry Kleinman
Secretary-Treasurer, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, (PCUN), Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United

Guadalupe Quinn
CAUSA (CAUSE), Oregon's Immigrant Rights Organization

Moderated by Professor Lynn Stephen, University of Oregon Department of Anthropology

3:15 p.m.   

Concluding Remarks

Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
Wayne Morse Visiting Distinguished Scholars from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Moderated by Keith Aoki, University of California–Davis School of Law

4:00 p.m.   

Book Signing and Reception:
In the Morse Commons

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SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES,
BOOKS AND BOOK SIGNINGS

Symposium Director:

Garrett Epps

Garrett Epps, is the 2007-08 Wayne Morse Resident Scholar and the Hollis Professor of Law, University of Oregon School of Law. He will conduct research into the birthright citizenship guarantee of the 14th Amendment. Epps is the author of Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America, which recently won the 2007 Oregon Book Award. A former staff writer for the Washington Post, he is the author of two novels and numerous articles and books on constitutional law. His book on Oregon's famous peyote case, To an Unknown God: Religious Freedom on Trial, was a finalist for the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award in 2002.

Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal rights in Post-civil War America, Henry Holt and Co, 2006. Advanced Praise and Book Reviews for “Democracy Reborn."

 

Keynote speakers:

Kevin R. Johnson

Kevin Johnson is Associate Dean of Law at the University of California–Davis and Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and Chicano/a Studies. He has published extensively on immigration law and policy, racial identity, and civil rights in national and international journals. Professor Johnson's book How Did You  Get to Be Mexican? A White/Brown Man's Search for Identity was published in 1999 and was nominated for the 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. The "Huddled Masses" Myth: Immigration and Civil Rights was published in 2004. Professor Johnson will be presenting material from his recent book Opening the Floodgates: Why America Needs to Rethink its Borders and Immigration Laws.

Opening the Floodgates: Why America Needs to Rethink its Borders and Immigration Laws, NYU Press, 2007. New York University Press Book Review.

Hiroshi Motomura

Hiroshi Motomura, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is an influential scholar and teacher of immigration and citizenship law. His book, Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States, which was published in 2006 by Oxford University Press, won the 2006 PSP Award from the Association of American Publishers in the Law and Legal Studies category. Motomura has published many significant articles and essays on immigration and citizenship, and he has been active in policy debates and lawsuits.

Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States, Oxford University Press, 2006.
Oxford University Press Book Review.

John C. Eastman

John Eastman presented a counter perspective, contending the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, as originally understood, has two elements for automatic citizenship—birth on U.S. soil, to parents who are subject to the complete, rather than merely partial and territorial, jurisdiction of the United States. Currently Dean and Donald P. Kennedy Chair in Law at Chapman University School of Law, Dr. Eastman previously served as a law clerk with Justice Clarence Thomas at the U.S. Supreme Court and with Judge J. Michael Luttig at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. His academic fields include political philosophy, American government, constitutional law, and international relations.

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Speakers:

Larry Kleinman

Larry co-founded Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN, Oregon's farmworker union) and has served as its Secretary-Treasurer since 1988. He has held Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) accreditation since 1977 to represent immigrants in administrative proceedings. In the 1980s he authored or edited several immigration publications published by Clark Boardman under the auspices of the National Lawyers Guild National Immigration Project. In 2005, the Guild awarded him the Carol Weiss King Award, recognizing longstanding service to and defense of immigrants. Larry is the founding board chair of the Northwest Workers' Justice Project. Originally from the Chicago area, Larry received a B.A. from Oberlin College in 1975.

 

Guadalupe Quinn

Guadalupe Quinn is a long-time community activist working for human rights, particularly racial and economic justice, worker rights and immigrant rights. She emigrated from Mexico in 1951 and grew up in California. Quinn is a leader in CAUSA (CAUSE), Oregon's immigrant rights organization. She has been active with many groups in the community including Educación y Justicia para la Raza, Eugene Human Rights Commission, ACLU, Community Alliance of Lane County. Guadalupe's favorite quote is “One only becomes real at the point of action.”

 

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Wayne Morse Visiting Distinguished Scholars:

Richard Delgado

During spring, 2008, the Wayne Morse Center welcomes an alumni of the Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics, Professor Richard Delgado and his wife Jean Stefancic as Visiting Distinguished Scholars.

Delgado is one of the leading commentators on race in the United States in both academia and the media. His books have won eight national book prizes, including six Gustavus Myers Awards for outstanding book on human rights in North America, the American Library Association's Outstanding Academic Book, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination.  

Delgado will visit the UO with his wife, legal writer Jean Stefancic, from the University of Pittsburgh where he holds the title of University Distinguished Professor of Law & Derrick Bell Fellow. View Delgado's curriculum vitae (70K PDF)

Delgado's most recent books include: The Politics of Fear and the Republican Ascendancy with Manuel Gonzalez, Justice at War: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights During Times of Crisis, and The Law Unbound!: A Richard Delgado Reader. Paradigm Publishers, 2007. Paradigm Publishers Book Review.

Jean Stefancic

Jean Stefancic is Research Professor of Law and Derrick Bell Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, where she writes about civil rights, law reform, social change, and legal scholarship. Her book, No Mercy: How Conservative Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America's Social Agenda, published by Temple University Press in 1996, won critical praise in the nonlegal as well as legal community. She has written and co-authored numerous articles and ten books, many with her husband Richard Delgado. Their 1997 book, Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror (Temple University Press) won a Gustavus Myers award for outstanding book on human rights in North American in 1998. View Stefancic's curriculum vitae (33K PDF)

 

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Symposium Moderators:

Ibrahim Gassama, Moderator

Lynn Stephen, Moderator

Keith Aoki, Moderator

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