American Constitution Society

Skip to content

University of Oregon School of Law

Contact Information
  • Email: bmeakins[at]uoregon.edu
  • Phone:
Location
1515 Agate Street
Eugene, OR 97403
United States
See map: Google Maps
Chapter Contacts
  • Brook Meakins - President, bmeakins[at]uoregon.edu
  • Chris Potter - Vice President, cpotter1[at]uoregon.edu
  • Danielle Smith - Secretary, dsmith10[at]uoregon.edu
  • Tim Ream - Community Liaison, tream[at]uoregon.edu
Recent Stories

Upcoming Events

  • September 9, 2008, 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm: Are Courts More Democratic than Congress? A Discussion of the Democratic Deficits in Our Political System by a Leading Scholar on Law and Politics. Featuring: Mark Graber, Professor of Law and Government, The University of Maryland School of Law and 2008 Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics, University of Oregon. Held at the White Stag Block Building, University of Oregon Portland Center, 70 NW Couch Street. Complementary lunch will be served. 1.5 hours of CLE credit is pending for this event. Registration required. RSVP by calling 541-346-3970 or email Rachel Johnson at raj@uoregon.edu.


  • September 25, 2008, 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm: Monthly Oregon ACS Social with complimentary beverages and hors d'oeuvres. Located at and generously sponsored by Miller Nash LLP, 3400 US Bancorp Tower, 111 S.W. Fifth Avenue, Portland, Oregon. RSVP here.

    • ACS Oregon Mentorship Program

    The ACS Oregon Lawyer Chapter and the ACS student chapters at the University of Oregon School of Law, Willamette University College of Law and the Lewis & Clark Law School are proud to invite you to participate in the ACS Oregon Student/Lawyer Mentorship Program for the 2008-2009 academic year.

    Since 2001, ACS has grown exponentially from a small campus organization to a national network of progressive scholars, judges, practitioners, advocates, public officials and law students. ACS and its members strive to promote the vitality of the U.S. Constitution and the fundamental values it expresses: individual rights and liberties, genuine equality, access to justice, democracy and the rule of law. Mentorship is a vital tool in achieving our mission because it offers a means by which more senior ACS supporters can provide career and professional guidance to more junior members of the community.

    To this end, we have developed a student/lawyer mentorship program to pair new and experienced lawyers from various career paths with law students. The program works as follows:

    • An Oregon Lawyer Chapter member is paired with a member of an Oregon law Student Chapter. To the extent possible, mentors and mentees are matched based on common interests and current or desired area of practice.

    • Mentors and mentees should meet in person at least twice per semester. ACS Oregon hosts one networking event each semester, which we strongly encourage all mentors and mentees to attend. Other opportunities to meet include coffee, lunch, after-work drinks, job shadowing and other ACS and career development events.

    • Mentors generally help their mentees network and find employment. Mentoring is extremely rewarding and a great way to encourage and guide upcoming lawyers or learn from established attorneys. Often, mentor-mentee relationships turn into friendships and professional partnerships.

    To participate in the program, please review the ACS Oregon Student/Lawyer Mentorship Program Description below and fill out the Online Mentor/Mentee Profile Form by clicking HERE. You may also download the Profile Form HERE, and email your profile and any questions to Oregon@ACSLaw.org.

    Keith Boykin Speaks on Race, Sexual Orientation, and Religion

    Keith Boykin recently spoke at the University of Oregon on race, religion, and sexuality. In the early 1990s, Boykin served in the Clinton administration as the highest-ranking openly gay White House aide. Boykin is considered to be one of the country's leading experts on the intersection of race and sexual orientation.

    At the University of Oregon, he compared and contrasted the fight for civil rights for the lesbian and gay community with the fight for civil rights for racial minorities. He criticized prominent African Americans that have refused to equate the two, and made specific reference to a statement that Colin Powell made in during the early 1990s discussion of gays in the military. "Part of what troubled me is that what General Powell was doing in his statement, and what so many pastors do today, is creating a hierarchy of oppression," Boykin said.

    Senator Ron Wyden on Civil Liberties, Secuirty, and the Balance of Power

    October 30, 2006, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) spoke to University of Oregon law students on a number of contemporary issues including:
    -civil liberties,
    -security,
    -Guantanamo detainees,
    -Iraq war and its domestic effects,
    -taxes,
    -national energy policy
    -and how all of these relate to the balance of power

    Senator Wyden said he believed that the Bush Administration's handling of the Guatanamo detainees was poor. He also expressed his views on terrorism, and argued that the civil liberties intrusions after 9-11 were unwarranted and unnecessary. He felt that apprehending the 9-11 suspects before they were able to follow through could have been accomplished without such civil liberties infringements, because the conduct of some of the suspects had been sufficiently outrageous to raise red flags with the state security apparatus. Senator Wyden also discussed our discussed enery politics and advocated the uptake of alternative fuels such as biodiesel as part of the national energy policy. Overall, it was a very helpful and informative speech for all those who attended.

    The Status of Reproductive Rights in Oregon

    On October 19, 2006, the American Constitution Society co-sponsored "The status of reproductive rights in Oregon," panel - one of many panels in a 2-day series of reproductive rights panels with the Women's Law Forum and Law Students for Choice. Sara Ainsworth, Senior Legal and Legislative Counsel of the Northwest Women's Law Center discussed the status of reproductive rights in Oregon. Specifically, she provided context based on what has happened and is happening in other Pacific Northwest states and general national trends, especially after the passage of recent federal legislation prohibiting the transportation of minors across state lines to avoid parental consent laws. Sara Ainsworth has worked on various pro bono cases and pieces of legislation throughout the Pacific NW regarding reproductive issues. She is a lawyer who has written/presented on the constitutional rights of teenagers.

    Second Founding: The Story of the Fourteenth Amendment

    On October 12, 2006, UO law professor Garrett Epps inaugurated his tenure as Hollis Professor of Law with a public lecture that explained his theory that the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment marks a "Second Founding: The Story of the Fourteenth Amendment" of the American Republic after the failure of the Constitution of 1787.

    His remarks drew on his recent book, Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America. "More than the Declaration of Independence, more than the original Constitution, more than even the Bill of Rights, it is the 14th Amendment that makes America a democratic country," Epps said. The speech was followed by a reception and booksigning in the Wayne Morse Commons.

    Garrett Epps, a former staff writer for the Washington Post, is the author of two novels and a number of articles and books on constitutional law. He is the Orlando and Marian Hollis Professor of Law at the University of Oregon.

    Click here to see the lecture.
    Second Founding: The Story of the Fourteenth Amendment speech

    XML feed
    Contact | Privacy Policy