Suffolk's Juvenile Justice Center carries on Gault legacy
Four decades have gone by, and Suffolk University continues to revere and abide by Gault's "bedrock principle" that children charged with criminal offenses should have legal representation. President of the Juvenile Justice Center at Suffolk University David J. Sargent recently welcomed Senator Edward M. Kennedy's decision to recognize the In re Gault decision of 1967. Senator Kennedy filed a Senate resolution in Congress last Tuesday praising the Gault decision as the determining factor in American history that "broadened the constitutional protections of due process to safeguarding children." The Supreme Court upheld Gault's argument that minors charged with criminal offenses in the juvenile justice system should be given legal support. Suffolk Law School students working for the Juvenile Justice Center strive to keep the Gault decision alive by taking on thousands of cases assigned to them by the Boston Juvenile Court. The center also actively participates in public advocacy programs aimed at improving the juvenile justice system.
University of Texas Law professor and director of the university's law and philosophy program Brian Leiter has had a book entitled Naturalizing Jurisprudence: Essays on American Legal Realism and Naturalism in Legal Philosophy published by the Oxford University Press. Naturalizing Jurisprudence is a collection of articles on intersections of law and philosophy based on jurisprudence and the philosophy of law. In his papers, Leiter offers a distinctive perception of naturalism, a central topic debated in modern philosophy. Naturalism also cast its shadow on early American legal realists' work. Leiter has been a very influential advocate of the relevance of the naturalistic turn in philosophy to problems of legal philosophy. The book includes slightly revised versions of Leiter's nine articles published between 1997 and 2003, as well as a new introduction and two new postscripts responding to critics.
Armed with a $20,000 grant from the Texas Bar Foundation, the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law created a new public service-leadership fellowship. While holding a one-year, full-time position, the fellow will help the law school's dean and the assistant dean for student affairs with the law school's diversity programs and "identify, implement, and coordinate" such initiatives by the law school. The fellow will help promote awareness and initiate discussions on diversity issues among educators, community leaders, and legal practitioners. Apart from this, he or she will also supervise the law school's current pipeline programs. These programs, popularly dubbed "pipeline initiatives," reflect the law school's efforts to encourage the participation of students from diverse backgrounds, as well as boost their persistence and success in middle and high school. The Texas Bar Foundation has awarded more than $9 million in grants to law-related programs since it was established in 1965.
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