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Law of the Land

Law of the Land 2021: The Supreme Court's Year in Review

July 7, 2021

On July 7, FOLCS and 92Y held its annual program, Law of the Land: The Supreme Court’s Year in Review. The series has proven to be immensely popular, mostly because the workings of the Supreme Court are mysterious and the decisions are so important. Law of the Land breaks it all down in a comprehensive, conversational, and entertaining way.

Thane Rosenbaum hosted a diverse panel of experts – CNN‘s Joan Biskupic; The Washington Post‘s Robert Barnes; Dean and Executive Vice President of Georgetown Law, William Treanor; and Associate Dean and Associate Law Professor at Touro College, Tiffany Graham – to delve into the cases decided this past Term, and what’s expected next Term, with all the legal, political, and social implications.

This event was produced in partnership with 92Y.

Watch Law of the Land 2021: The Supreme Court’s Year in Review here.

See more from FOLCS here.

Joan Biskupic
Legal Analyst, CNN

Joan Biskupic, a full-time CNN legal analyst, has covered the Supreme Court for twenty-five years and is the author of several books on the judiciary.

Before joining CNN in 2017, Biskupic spent a year as a visiting professor at the University of California, Irvine, law school. She previously was an editor-in-charge for Legal Affairs at Reuters and, before that position, the Supreme Court correspondent for the Washington Post and for USA Today.

She most recently published a biography of Chief Justice John Roberts (The Chief, spring 2019). Her previous books include Sandra Day O’Connor (2005), American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (2009) and Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice (2014).

A graduate of Georgetown University law school, Biskupic was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism in 2015.

Robert Barnes
Reporter and Editor, The Washington Post

Robert Barnes has spent most of his career at The Washington Post, as a reporter and editor. He joined the paper as a political reporter, and has covered campaigns at the presidential, congressional and gubernatorial level. He served in various editing positions, including metropolitan editor, deputy national editor in charge of domestic issues and the Supreme Court, and national political editor. He has covered the Supreme Court since November 2006, including the nominations of Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Merrick Garland, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

He is a native Floridian, and previously worked at the Associated Press and St. Petersburg (now, Tampa Bay) Times. He gave up law school plans for a life in newspapers after taking a journalism class at the University of Florida.

William Treanor
Dean and Executive Vice President, Georgetown Law

William M. Treanor is the Dean and Executive Vice President of Georgetown University Law Center. He joined Georgetown in 2010 and was reappointed to serve a third term beginning July 1, 2020. Under Treanor’s leadership, Georgetown Law has hired 47 new tenure or tenure track faculty members; expanded the number of experiential offerings for students from 450 to more than 3200 seats across the clinical, externship, practicum, and simulation programs; more than doubled financial aid; and experienced its most successful era of fundraising, culminating in nearly $33 million in giving in 2020. In 2012, he was recognized by the National Law Journal as a “Champion” because of his work to “uphold the profession’s core values,” and National Jurist magazine has named him one of the most influential people in legal education four times. Most recently, he was elected into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences for law as part of its 2020 class of new members. His areas of expertise include constitutional law, property, criminal law, intellectual property, and legal history, and he was recognized as one of the 10 most-cited legal history scholars in the United States by the University of Chicago Law School’s Brian Leiter. At Georgetown Law, he has taught a first-year legal justice seminar, an upper-level course on the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, and most recently leadership courses. Before coming to Georgetown, Treanor was Dean and Paul Fuller Professor of Law at Fordham Law School, where he began teaching in 1991. Treanor has a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and a B.A. from Yale College (summa cum laude).

Tiffany Graham
Associate Dean and Associate Law Professor, Touro College

Tiffany C. Graham is an Associate Professor of Law and the Associate Dean of Diversity and Inclusion at Touro College, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center in Long Island, New York. She joined the law school in May 2020 after serving for six years on the faculty and as the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of South Dakota School of Law. Professor Graham primarily teaches in the areas of constitutional law and race and the law, but has also taught criminal procedure, law and sexuality, and torts.

She has written and spoken nationally on topics broadly related to LGBTQ+ equality, including marriage equality, LGBTQ+ youth homelessness, conversion therapy, and the integration of LGBTQ+ communities in rural spaces. Her work has appeared in multiple law journals, has been cited at various stages of appellate litigation, and has most recently been included in the Carolina Academic Press book, Integrating Doctrine and Diversity: Inclusion and Equity in the Law School Classroom.

In addition to her scholarly work, Professor Graham is active in the professional community, where she recently served as the Chair of the South Dakota State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights and now serves on the corresponding New York State Advisory Committee. Professor Graham has also recently joined the Boards of Directors for both Little Flower Children and Family Services of New York as well as the Family Service League.

A graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and the University of Virginia School of Law, she previously served as a federal law clerk on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and did commercial litigation in the Los Angeles office of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver and Hedges, LLP. Professor Graham was named a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in 2014.