Another semester starts, and ACS at the University of Michigan remains in high gear! While other students were puzzling over book lists and add/drop requirements, the ACS Board was planning events with strong speakers:

Jan. 17 - Judge Pratt

ACS and ACLU sponsored Judge Pratt, Chief Judge on the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Iowa. Judge Pratt spoke to a crowd of about 50 people, giving us the inside scoop on two recent cases. He wrote the Gall v. United States opinion, a federal sentencing case reversed by the 8th Circuit but restored by the Supreme Court. He also discussed Americans United, a prison ministries establishment clause case recently affirmed.

Jan. 24 - The Fundamental Right to (Keep Your) Same-Sex Marriage

ACS and Outlaws proudly presented Steve Sanders, a Supreme Court attorney with Mayer Brown, LLP in Chicago. Same-sex couples can legally marry in Massachusetts...but what happens when a couple moves to a state that declares same-sex marriages null and void? If the Constitution doesn't give gay and lesbian couples the right to get married, does it give them the right to remain married? Drawing on Supreme Court family-privacy and gay-rights cases, as well as common law and federalism, Steve Sanders argued that it does. About 30 people came to enjoy pizza and join in an engaging discussion of the rights and issues involved in this hot topic. (For more information on the speaker and the underlying case, see the University of Michigan ACS website at http://students.law.umich.edu/acs/)