This award, established in 1995-96, is designed to recognize a faculty or staff member who has exemplified achievement in cultural diversity.The award is in honor of Nancy “Rusty” Barceló, former assistant provost and interim director of Opportunity at Iowa.

Byrd received the award along with Kelly Collins who is the Tutor Coordinator for TRiO Student Support Services in the Center for Diversity and Enrichment in the UI Chief Diversity Office.

http://now.uiowa.edu/2013/05/old-gold-iowa-rescued-oblivion

http://www.law.uiowa.edu/faculty/christina-bohannan.php

Angela Fontana, ’89, co-head of U.S. Banking & Finance and a partner resident in the Dallas office of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, was named a 2013 Most Powerful & Influential Woman by the Texas Diversity Council. The award was presented to Fontana and other statewide honorees at the 9th Annual Texas Diversity and Leadership Conference in Dallas.

The award recognizes Texas women who provide leadership excellence in the public and/or private sectors; demonstrate a commitment to community well-being and the highest ethical standards and professional excellence; sustain a record of accomplishments and/or contributions to their field of work; and hold positions in their organizations that have an impact on revenues, profitability, and/or the direction of the organization.

Fontana is one of the pre-eminent attorneys nationally in her practice, which consists primarily of transactions and debt restructurings of private equity finance and restructurings in financing leveraged buyouts. She represents both borrowers and financial institutions, and has been involved in a wide variety of financing transactions both domestically and abroad. Fontana is consistently recognized by prominent publications including Chambers Global, Chambers USA, The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers, The Legal 500 USA, US IFLR 1000, The Best Lawyers in America and the Guide to the World’s Leading Women in Business Law. She has also been named a Texas Super Lawyer since 2003, and has been honored in D Magazine’s Best Lawyers in Dallas.

http://thegazette.com/2013/05/08/injustice-of-disabilities-lawsuit-off-the-charts/

View a video of the Waterman family by clicking on the link below.

http://youtu.be/R_NKW0e0aGI

http://now.uiowa.edu/2013/04/study-teamwork

http://now.uiowa.edu/2013/04/uichr-announces-2013-weston-essay-contest

View a video of The Honorable Mary Tabor, ’91 by clicking on the link below.

http://youtu.be/tJ1FB3Ihs5w

For better than two decades now, Critical Race Theory scholars have studied the role race plays in American law, but have focused mostly on developing abstract theory and not on gathering data.

At the same time, scholars in the social sciences have gathered reams of data to measure and analyze the way that race impacts everyday life, but have done so without looking to see what’s happening in Critical Race Theory.

A conference at the University of Iowa College of Law later this month hopes to more properly introduce the two fields to each other.

“Our hope is to build bridges between not only these two methods and theories, but also the communities of scholars working in this area,” says Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Professor of Law and organizer of the conference that will be held April 26 and 27 in the Boyd Law Building. Two panel discussions will be open to the public on Friday, April 26, at 2 p.m. in room 245 of the Boyd Law Building.

Critical Race Theory was developed as a way to examine how race and America’s racial history influences the country’s laws and legal systems. Although racial injustice bred through centuries of slavery and segregation were common, Onwuachi-Willig says there was little discussion until the 1980s of its effects on the legal system.

Since then, the theory has had a significant impact in the legal and political realm, as seen in numerous laws, legal arguments and court decisions regarding employment, discrimination, immigration, voting rights, and even tax law. Onwuachi-Willig hopes the conference will inspire scholars to engage in more empirical research to further strengthen the field’s work in the legal and political realm, and encourage social science scholars to use critical race theory as part of their framework.

Friday’s first panel will address how race and implicit bias affect the law of self-defense and the Fourth Amendment’s stop and frisk doctrine; juries in trials involving tort claims, and judicial decision-making under the U.S. Supreme Court’s newly fashioned pleading standard.

The second panel focuses on issues concerning race and identity by challenging typical notions of race and examining the usefulness of surveys in measuring racial inequality.