The late Georgia Speaker of the House David E. Ralston is being memorialized with a scholarship fund bearing his name at the University of Georgia School of Law. The fund will provide support for scholarships, summer fellowships or Georgia leaders-in-residence at the School of Law, in memory of Ralston, who died in November 2022 at the age of 68. The fund was established by Joel O. Wooten, a 1975 graduate of the School of Law, who knew Ralston for many years, with the University of Georgia Foundation offering matching funds.
Brock Associate Professor in Professional Responsibility Nathan S. Chapman provided three important takeaways from the U.S. Supreme Court's recently released decision in Groff v. DeJoy, which expanded the rights of employees against religious discrimination in the workplace.
Hosch Professor & Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor Lori A. Ringhand, who is an election law expert, offers insight into the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Moore v. Harper decision. “The Supreme Court's recent decision in Moore v. Harper puts to rest some of the more extreme claims made in the 2020 presidential election. It also ensures that states, like Georgia, that protect elections and voting rights in their state constitutions can have confidence that decisions about what those provisions mean will continue to be decided by judges within the state, who are best situated to understand state law."
The Community Health Law Partnership Clinic successfully settled ALCEDO CIUDAD et al v. GARLAND et al., a lawsuit filed on behalf of two domestic violence survivors in 2023 against the Department of Homeland Security in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. The complaint was primarily drafted by second-year students Alexandra Smolyar and Jake R. Shatzer under the supervision of Associate Dean & Community HeLP Clinic Director Jason A. Cade and Staff Attorney Kristen Shepherd. Students assisting with the underlying immigration cases included Thomas A. Evans (J.D.'22), Ailen Data (LL.M.'22) and Luis G. Gomez Chavez (J.D.'22).
Brumby Distinguished Professor in First Amendment Law Sonja R. West received the Stonecipher Award for Distinguished Research on Media Law and Policy for her co-authored article "The U.S. Supreme Court's Characterizations of the Press: An Empirical Study" in the North Carolina Law Review (with R.A. Jones). The award is presented annually by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication to recognize the "best mass communications law research" with preference "given to research with a strong theoretical component that demonstrates the potential to have a lasting influence on freedom of expression scholarship." Notably, West received the award in 2017 for her article "The ‘Press,’ Then & Now" in the Ohio State Law Journal.