NEW YORK, September 16, 2005 --- Like many other educational institutions, New York Law School will be complying with the new federal Constitution Day law—but with a twist. The law school will hold a panel discussion, “Is Constitutional Day Constitutional: Byrd-Brained Idea or Welcome Opportunity?” As its name suggests, the panelists will consider the constitutionality of the requirement for schools to present programs or distribute materials relating to the United States Constitution on or about September 17 each year, and they will discuss potentially more appropriate ways to teach Americans about the Constitution. The law school’s event is scheduled for Wednesday, September 21.

The panel will be moderated by Jethro K. Lieberman, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of law. Dean Lieberman is the author of A Practical Companion to the Constitution (1999) and many other books and teaches several courses in constitutional law.

The panelists are:

• Akhil Reed Amar
  Southmayd Professor of Law
  Yale Law School
  
  Professor Amar specializes in the areas of constitutional law, federal jurisdiction, criminal procedure, and American legal history. He is the author of The Constitution and Criminal Procedure: First Principles (1997); For the People (with A. Hirsch) (1997); The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction (1998); Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (ed. with P. Brest, S. Levinson, and J.M. Balkin) (2000); and most recently, America’s Constitution: A Biography (2005), published this month by Random House.
  
  
• Richard B. Bernstein
  Adjunct Professor of Law
  New York Law School
  
  Professor Bernstein is the author or editor of nearly 20 books on American constitutional history, including Are We to Be a Nation: The Making of the Constitution (1987) and Amending America (1995), both nominated for the Pulitzer, Bancroft, and Parkman Prizes. His recent book Thomas Jefferson (2003) was called “the best short biography of Jefferson ever written” by the New York Times.
  
  
• Donna Lieberman
  Executive Director
  New York Civil Liberties Union
  
  Donna Lieberman has been executive director of the NYCLU since December 2001. She appears regularly in the press and speaks frequently at local and national events on civil liberties and civil rights issues. (She is not related to Dean Jethro Lieberman.)
  
  
• Denise Morgan
  Professor of Law
  New York Law School
  
  Professor Morgan is an expert on race and public schools; she represents the Black, Puerto Rican and Hispanic Legislative Caucus and filed an amicus brief on its behalf in a landmark case against New York State to establish equity in public school funding for New York City's schoolchildren. Her courses include Education Policy and the Law; Federal Courts and the Federal System; and Race: A Historical and Legal Investigation of Antidiscrimination Principles. She is the coeditor of the forthcoming Awakening from the Dream: Civil Rights Under Siege and the New Struggle for Equal Justice, to be published later this year by Carolina Academic Press.

Video footage of the event will be posted after the event on New York Law School’s Web site, old.nyls.edu.

The requirement to observe Constitution Day was inserted into a spending bill by Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-West Virginia) and signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 8, 2004. The new law established September 17 as Constitution Day and requested an accompanying educational program in all federally funded institutions. The Department of Education has stated that it does not plan to monitor or enforce compliance with the requirement. Some educational institutions as well as legal scholars, however, have questioned whether a national requirement to celebrate the “birthday” of the Constitution is in fact constitutional, as it resembles a federally mandated educational curriculum—a mandate that many people would argue is not actually permitted by the Constitution. The participants in the September 21 panel discussion will debate this and other aspects of Constitution Day.

About New York Law School

Founded in 1891, New York Law School is the second oldest independent law school in the United States. Drawing on its location near the centers of law, government, and finance in New York City, its faculty of noted and prolific scholars has built the school’s curricular strength in such areas as tax law, labor and employment law, civil and human rights law, media and information law, urban legal studies, international and comparative law, corporate and commercial law, and interdisciplinary fields such as legal history and legal ethics. New York Law School has more than 11,000 graduates and enrolls some 1500 students in its full- and part-time J.D. program. It is one of only two law schools in the metropolitan area to offer the Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Taxation. 

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Contact: Edith Sachs, Office of Public Affairs, 212.431.2187, esachs@nyls.edu