THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL 2023-24.
Professor Deborah N. Archer of New York University School of Law will present the
David C. Baum Lecture on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights
“The Power and Persistence of Racism”
POSTPONED
Professor Archer will broadly address racial justice, touching on housing, voting rights, and criminal legal system reform.
Free and open to the public.
Deborah N. Archer is Associate Dean and Co-Director of Clinical and Advocacy Programs, Professor of Clinical Law, and Co-Faculty Director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU School of Law. Deborah is also the President of the American Civil Liberties Union and a leading expert in civil rights, civil liberties, and racial justice. She is an award-winning teacher and legal scholar whose articles have appeared in leading law reviews. Deborah has also offered commentary for numerous media outlets, including MSNBC, National Public Radio, CBS, Monocle, The Atlantic, and The New York Times.
Deborah is a graduate of Yale Law School, where she was awarded the Charles G. Albom Prize, and Smith College. She previously worked as an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where she litigated in the areas of voting rights, employment discrimination, and school desegregation. Deborah is also a former chair of the American Association of Law School's Section on Civil Rights and the Section on Minority Groups. She previously served as Chair of the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, the nation’s oldest and largest police oversight agency.
Deborah has been honored by numerous community organizations and legal institutions, including Yale Law School, Columbia Law School, Boston University School of Law, New York University, Smith College, New York Law School, the American Association of Law Schools, and the Law and Society Association. In 2021, the Law and Society Association awarded her the John Hope Franklin Prize, Honorable Mention for her article "'White Men's Roads Through Black Men's Homes': Advancing Racial Equity Through Highway Reconstruction" which appeared in the Vanderbilt Law Review. Deborah also received a 2021 Podell Distinguished Teaching Award, the 2020-2021 Jacob K. Javits Professorship from New York University, the 2021 Stephen Ellmann Memorial Clinical Scholarship Award from the American Association of Law Schools, the Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award from New York Law School, and the Haywood Burns/Shanara Guilbert Award from the Northeast People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference.
About the David C. Baum Memorial Lecture on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights
The family and friends of David C. Baum endowed the David C. Baum Memorial Lecture on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights not only in his memory, but at his request.
Deep concern for the dignity and rights of all people was central to Professor Baum’s character and activities. After receiving his undergraduate and legal education at Harvard University, Professor Baum served as law clerk for Justice Walter V. Schaefer of the Illinois Supreme Court, 1959-60. He then practiced law with the Chicago firm of Ross, McGowan, Hardies and O’Keefe until he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois College of Law in 1963.
Professor Baum was an inspiration to his student and colleagues, not only because of the excellence of his teaching, scholarship, and public service, but because of his remarkable human qualities. Conscientious and judicious, blending passion for justice with dispassionate objectivity, he inspired the highest level of discourse and endeavor in all who had the privilege of knowing and working with him.
It is hoped that the David C. Baum Memorial Lecture on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights will constitute a fitting memorial to a man whose unrelenting intellectual vigor and moral commitment made his presence in the world of law invaluable.
For more information:
Carolyn Turner, Assistant Dean for Administration
carolynt@illinois.edu