Quiet Revolution

October 11, 2006, 12:00pm – 1:30pm

About This Event

Alliance for Justice has produced a provocative short documentary entitled Quiet Revolution. Narrated by Emmy award-winning actor Bradley Whitford, the film features U.S. Senator Barack Obama and describes how an increasingly influential movement on the far right has waged a sustained war on the Constitution as we know it. Ultra-conservative politicians, judges, professors, and activists would overturn decades of precedent to eviscerate popular laws protecting workers, consumers, and public health, expand executive power at the expense of basic civil liberties, and impose a narrow social agenda on the rest of the body politic.

Lunch will be served at 11:30am.

Featured Panelists:
Nan Aron, President, Alliance for Justice
Dawn Johnsen, Professor of Law and Ira C. Batman Faculty Fellow, Indiana University School of Law
Jamie Raskin, Professor of Law and Director of the Law and Government Program, Washington College of Law
Emily Bazelon, Senior Editor, Slate

Moderated by:
Mark Agrast, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

Location

Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW
Washington, DC 20005

Resources

Conference Materials

• Ideology Matters, by Mark Agrast
• Tipping the Scale, by Dawn Johnson
• The Formerly Great Writ, by Emily Bazelon
• A Quiet Revolution (Video), presented by the Alliance for Justice
• Event Transcript
  

Biographies

Nan Aron is President of Alliance for Justice (AFJ), a national association of public interest and civil rights organizations. Founded in 1979, AFJ leads progressive advocacy and strengthens the progressive movement to ensure robust and equal access to levers of government power.

In 1985, Aron founded the AFJ’s Judicial Selection Project, now the country's premier voice for a fair and independent judiciary and a major player in the often-controversial judicial nominations process. Notable accomplishments include helping to defeat Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987; supporting the nomination of Roger Gregory, the first African American judge in the Fourth Circuit, in 2001; and organizing the effort that helped support ten Senate filibusters against President George W. Bush's most extreme judicial nominees.

In addition to increasing judicial advocacy, Aron has led the AFJ to expand its programs to support the participation of nonprofit and foundation staff in public life. AFJ's workshops, technical assistance, and publications encourage lobbying, involvement in ballot measures, and election activities. Aron has also developed advocacy training for young people through programs like First Monday, which educate and inspire students to engage in social justice activism.

Aron is nationally recognized for her vast expertise in public interest law, the federal judiciary, and citizen participation in public policy. She is the author of Liberty and Justice for All: Public Interest Law in the 1980s and Beyond and has appeared as an expert in such media outlets as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Vanity Fair and National Public Radio. She is also a frequent guest speaker at universities, law schools, corporations, nonprofits and foundations.

Aron has taught at Georgetown and George Washington University Law Schools, and serves on the Dean's Advisory Council at American University's Washington College of Law. She has served as Executive Producer for several award-winning films on immigration, courageous judges, and gun violence. Prior to founding the AFJ, Aron was a staff attorney for the ACLU's National Prison Project, where she challenged conditions in state prison systems through lawsuits in federal and state courts. As a trial attorney for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, she litigated race and sex discrimination cases against companies and unions in federal and district courts. She has a BA from Oberlin College and a JD from Case Western Reserve University.

Emily Bazelon is a senior editor at Slate. She edits the magazine's health and science columns, co-edits the religion coverage, and writes about law and family. Before joining Slate, she worked as an editor and writer at Legal Affairs magazine and as a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, and Mother Jones, among other publications. She is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.

Dawn Johnsen is a Professor of Law and Ira C. Batman Faculty Fellow at Indiana University School of Law. She joined the Law School faculty in 1998, following a distinguished career in Washington, D.C. After five years as legal director of NARAL, Professor Johnsen was a deputy assistant attorney general and then the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, where she advised the attorney general, the White House counsel, and the general counsels of all the executive departments and agencies. She teaches courses on constitutional law, the first amendment, and the separation of powers. Professor Johnsen has testified before Congress, is a frequent speaker at national conferences, and has appeared on many national television and radio news programs.

Jamie Raskin teaches constitutional law, First Amendment law, the Constitution and public education, and international economic law at the Washington College of Law (WCL). Raskin is also co-director of WCL's Program on Law and Government and Marshall-Brennan Fellows Program. His book Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court versus the American People (January 2003), which examines patterns of conservative judicial activism and interference with democratic politics, was a Washington Post bestseller. His previous book, We the Students (CQ Press and Supreme Court Historical Society, 2000), which examines the Supreme Court's treatment of America's high schools and their students, has sold more than 25,000 copies. An active constitutional lawyer, Raskin has represented clients as diverse as Ross Perot, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and former Montgomery County, Maryland, police chief Charles Moose. In 2000, he introduced the provocative idea of Internet "vote pairing" (or "vote trading") in Slate magazine. He coauthored a book about campaign finance called The Wealth Primary and has published several law review articles about the Supreme Court and race. Raskin has been a First Amendment counsel to the ACLU's national office in Washington, D.C., and has successfully represented several plaintiffs in First Amendment cases.  During academic year 2003–04 he was a visiting professor at Sciences Po in Paris. He is the author of numerous essays, law review articles, and op-eds on politics, law, and culture. He is fluent in French and has written articles for French publications.

Mark Agrast is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he focuses on the Constitution, separation of powers, terrorism and civil liberties and the rule of law. Prior to joining the Center for American Progress, Agrast was Counsel and Legislative Director to Congressman William D. Delahunt of Massachusetts (1997-2003). He previously served as a top aide to Massachusetts Congressman Gerry E. Studds (1992-97) and practiced international law with the Washington office of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue (1985-91). During his years on Capitol Hill, Agrast played a prominent role in shaping laws on civil and constitutional rights, terrorism and civil liberties, criminal justice, patent and copyright law, antitrust, and other matters within the jurisdiction of the House Committee on the Judiciary. He was also responsible for legal issues within the jurisdiction of the House International Relations Committee, including the implementation of international agreements on human rights, intercountry adoption, and the protection of intellectual property rights.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, he received his B.A. summa cum laude from Case Western Reserve University in 1978, attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar from 1978-81, and received his J.D. in 1985 from Yale Law School. He is a member of the Supreme Court Bar and is admitted to practice in Ohio and the District of Columbia.

Agrast has been a leader in a number of professional and civic organizations, including the American Bar Association, in which he serves on the 37-member Board of Governors and is a member of its executive committee. He is a past chair of the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, and was elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation in 2001.

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Alliance for Justice leads progressive advocacy and strengthens the progressive movement to ensure robust and equal access to leavers of government power.