John P. Morris Memorial Lecture with Professor Guy-Uriel Charles

About Professor Guy-Uriel Charles:

Guy-Uriel Charles is the founding director of the Duke Law Center on Law, Race and Politics. He is an expert in and frequent public commentator on constitutional law, election law, campaign finance, redistricting, politics and race. He joined Duke Law's faculty in 2009; he previously was the Russell M. and Elizabeth M. Bennett Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School.

Professor Charles is co-founder of the Colored Demos blog, coloreddemos.blogspot.com, and a reviewer for Stanford University Press, University of Chicago Press, and New York University Press. He has published articles in Constitutional Commentary, The Michigan Law Review, The Michigan Journal of Race and Law, The Georgetown Law Journal, The Journal of Politics, The California Law Review, The North Carolina Law Review and others.

Professor Charles received his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School and clerked for The Honorable Damon J. Keith of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. While at the University of Michigan, he was the founder and first editor-in-chief of the Michigan Journal of Race and Law. From 1995-2000, he was a graduate student in political science at the University of Michigan.

Professor Charles joined the University of Minnesota Law School faculty in 2000 and later served as interim co-dean there. He was named the Stanley V. Kinyon Teacher of the Year for 2002-2003. He has been a visiting professor at Georgetown, Virginia and Columbia law schools. A past member of the National Research Commission on Elections and Voting and the Century Foundation Working Group on Election Reform, Professor Charles has served as the director of the Institute for Law and Politics, a Senior Fellow in law and politics at the Institute on Race and Poverty, and a Law School faculty affiliate at the Center for the Study of Political Psychology, University of Minnesota. Guy-Uriel Charles is the founding director of the Duke Law Center on Law, Race and Politics.

About the Lecture:

For fifty years, the Voting Rights Act represented a distinctive and successful approach to addressing racial equality in voting, an approach constructed from the iron fillings of the civil rights movement. In Shelby County v. Holder, the court struck down one of the most important provisions of the act and signaled the end of a particular way of understanding voting rights law and policy.

In this lecture, Professor Charles will address two questions that are critical for voting rights academics and activists. First, what has been the key to the success of the voting rights model in the last fifty years? Second, where should voting rights law and policy go from here?

Light refreshments will be provided.