Highly Respected Civil Rights Attorney to Speak in MU’s Amicus Curiae Lecture Series

The Amicus Curiae Lecture Series, sponsored by the Simon Perry Center for Constitutional Democracy at Marshall University, continues Tuesday, March 11, when it welcomes David Rudovsky, senior fellow and professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and highly respected civil rights attorney.
Rudovsky’s lecture, “Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration and Racial Injustice in the United States,” will focus on the connection between the high rates of incarceration in the United States and racial disparities present in all parts of the criminal justice system. This includes the causes of the huge increase in the prison population over the past 40 years; the political and ideological justifications for this development; the laws, practices and policies that have fueled large racial disparities in stop, arrest and incarceration rates; and what measures are necessary to ensure greater racial justice.
Rudovsky has taught Criminal Law, Constitutional Criminal Procedure, and Evidence at Penn Law since 1975, and has been a senior fellow since 1988. He has been recognized repeatedly with the law school’s highest awards for excellence in teaching. He is also a founding partner of the civil rights law firm Kairys, Rudovsky, Epstein & Messing and has been a public defender in Philadelphia. He was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and Award for Accomplishments in Civil Rights Law and Criminal Justice; the ACLU Civil Liberties Award; and the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Cesare Beccaria Award for Criminal Justice Accomplishments. He has co-authored two books on Constitutional Criminal Procedure and has published extensively in law reviews, including at Penn, Columbia and Temple.
Patricia Proctor, director of the Simon Perry Center for Constitutional Democracy, said, “Professor Rudovsky’s topic is one of the great social justice issues of our time. We are fortunate to have a lecturer who has not only studied the issue for years, but has also confronted it through his practice of law.”
The lecture will begin at 7 p.m. in the Marshall University Foundation Hall, home of the Erickson Alumni Center, and is free to the public. The series is supported by a grant from the West Virginia Humanities Council.