PULLMAN – Slavery and the Constitution, as well as the Ten Commandments and the separation of church and state, will be discussed in two presentations Feb. 1 and 2.
Paul Finkelman, the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy at Albany Law School in New York, will talk about slavery and the Constitution at 2:10 p.m. Monday, Feb. 1, in Todd 133.
In the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court found that slaves of African origin, or their descendents, were not U.S. citizens and could not enjoy the protections guaranteed by the Constitution.
Finkelman will discuss the historical and legal context of the constitutional provisions that recognized and protected slavery in the earliest years of the American constitutional system.
He will talk about the Ten Commandments and the separation of church and state at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 2, in Smith CUE 518. This lecture will be followed by pizza and open discussion. Please RSVP at relgar@wsu.edu.
Finkelman was the chief expert witness in the Alabama Ten Commandments monument case. His scholarship on religious monuments in public spaces was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Van Order v. Perry (2005).
Finkelman is a specialist in American legal history, race and law who has written more than 20 books and 100 scholarly articles. He is an expert on the treatment of religion by the U.S. government, the establishment clause, the free exercise clause and religious liberty.
Both events are sponsored by the WSU Foley Institute.