June 2, 2026

Faculty Appearances: April Highlights

Jessica Barclay-Strobel

• On May 5, Jessica was a guest lecturer in a course covering the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) at the University of Illinois, Springfield. Jessica presented on NEPA’s state analog, the California Environmental Quality Act, and its impact on rulemaking and administrative adjudication.

Luke Boso

• On May 1, Luke published an essay in the Oxford Human Rights Hub, Chiles v. Salazar: Free Speech, Religious Liberty, and the Invisibility of LGBTQ Harm. In this piece, Luke discusses the tangible harms queer youth will experience following the Supreme Court’s decision extending First Amendment protection to talk-based “conversion therapy.” Luke then situates Chiles within the recent “stream of decisions demonstrating the Court’s special sympathy for perceived victims of LGBTQ+ inclusion.” Luke concludes: “In the last decade, the Court has remade the Constitution in line with right-wing policy preferences. Today, harms to religious adherents’ commitment to LGBTQ exclusion garner maximum constitutional protection, while the resulting exclusionary harms to LGBTQ people receive none.”

Catherine Carpenter

• On April 21, Catherine moderated and gave introductory remarks for a CLE webinar, Sex Offender Laws: Legal Challenges and Remedies.

Meera Deo

• On March 29, Meera gave a virtual presentation for the National Conference for Law Review Editors. In this session, Meera shared findings from empirical research on wellbeing in legal education, including data specific to law journal editors. The goal was to help law journal editors and staff learn why and how to prioritize wellness as they cope with multiple responsibilities, respond to various constituencies, and juggle competing personal and professional duties.

Andrea Freeman

• On April 18, Andrea attended the L.A. Times Festival of Books where she moderated a panel, The Politics of Gender, with authors Anna Malaika Tubbs, Eli Erlick, and Brandon Taylor Robinson. Andrea also participated in a book-signing session, and she served as a judge on the selection committee for the Book Prize in History.

• On April 16, Andrea was a featured guest on the UK Podcast, Hungry Historians, to discuss her latest book.

John Heilman

• In April, John was selected as the recipient of the Harvey Milk Lifetime Achievement Award, to be presented on May 22 at the 18th Annual San Diego County Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast. John was selected for this award in recognition of his decades of policy work advancing LGBTQ+ rights in Los Angeles and beyond. Congratulations, John!

Richard Jolly

• Richard was the recipient of this year's Clifford Scholar-in-Residence, an annual award recognizing a "rising star" in civil justice. On April 16, Richard delivered a public address at DePaul Law School entitled, The Democratic Virtues of the Civil Jury, in which he addressed the virtues cultivated through jury service.

Hila Keren & Luke Boso

• On April 3, Hila and Luke co-authored an Op-Ed for Slate, The Supreme Court Keeps Ignoring Actual LGBTQ+ People in Its Gay Rights Cases. In this piece, Luke and Hila discuss the Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision in Chiles v. Salazar which held that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors is unconstitutional as applied to a Christian therapist who seeks to engage in “talk therapy.” After discussing the ADF’s manipulative and one-sided pre-enforcement litigation strategy in this and other recent LGBTQ+ rights cases, Hila and Luke conclude that “reducing the regulation of conversion therapy to a simple matter of free speech in which LGBTQ+ people have no say is a ghastly betrayal of the constitutional duty to protect minorities’ rights and liberties.”

Faisal Kutty

• On April 8, Faisal published a feature essay in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs: A 5-Year-Old’s Voice from Gaza Reached the Oscars. Now the World Has No Excuse Not to Listen. In this piece, Faisal examines the documentary, The Voice of Hind Rajab, and argues that the film transformed the suffering of one Palestinian child into a broader moral and political reckoning about civilian harm, media narratives, and international accountability.
• On March 31, Faisal published an analysis in Law360 Canada: What happens when a government can override constitutional rights? Canada is about to find out. In this piece, Faisal examines the constitutional implications of Quebec’s Bill 21, arguing that the preemptive use of the notwithstanding clause represents a significant shift from a rarely used safeguard to a first line of defense against rights review. He contends that this trend risks transforming constitutional rights from durable protections into negotiable interests subject to political override, with far-reaching consequences for Canadian constitutionalism.
• On March 30, Faisal published a feature essay in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs: Why Some Children’s Deaths Shake the World and Others Don’t. In this piece, Faisal examines the uneven media and political responses to the deaths of children in conflict zones, arguing that geopolitical narratives often determine whose suffering receives global attention and whose is marginalized or ignored.
• On March 14, Faisal published a feature essay in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs: Trump’s Iran Strikes Test the Limits of Law—And Risk Unraveling the Region. In this piece, Faisal examines the constitutional and international law implications of U.S. strikes on Iran, arguing that bypassing congressional authorization and stretching the limits of self-defense under the U.N. Charter risks undermining both domestic constitutional safeguards and the postwar international legal order.
• On February 19, Faisal was quoted in a feature published by Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative entitled Islamophobia Takes Center Stage in the Lone Star State. The article examined the resurgence of anti-Muslim political rhetoric in Texas and across the United States, including renewed “Sharia law” panic narratives, and highlighted how fear-based political campaigns and media narratives normalize Islamophobia and undermine pluralistic democracy.

Christine Lofgren

• As an Executive Committee Member of USC’s Intellectual Property Institute, and as Co-Chair of its AI Subcommittee, Christine organized panels and spoke during the Workshop Opening Remarks session for this year’s AI for IP Workshop in Santa Monica, held on March 16-17.

Jyoti Nanda

• On April 17, Jyoti presented by invitation, as one of sixteen selected scholars from across the country, at a Symposium held at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and hosted by Rights4Children—a consortium of three women law professors working to reimagine the constitutional rights canon from a child-centered perspective. At the Symposium, Juvenile Justice and …: A Symposium Exploring Intersections, Innovations, and Emerging Conversations, Jyoti presented her ongoing research on pregnant girls in detention and shared preliminary findings drawn from Los Angeles County Probation files. 

• On April 11, Jyoti participated in the UCLA Law Fellows Academy, a program dedicated to supporting non-traditional and first-generation students pursuing law school. Jyoti delivered a mock law school lecture, Hate Crimes and Memo Writing, to an audience of 150 students. The session introduced participants to core legal writing and analytical skills while offering insight into the law school classroom experience.

Orly Ravid

• On April 30, Orly virtually attended The Alliance For Media Arts + Culture’s event, It Will Be Seen: Indie Distribution in 2026, where she spoke on a panel for filmmakers discussing independent film distribution this year. Orly also discussed Southwestern's Entertainment & the Arts Legal Clinic.

Byron Stier

• During the 2026 spring quarter (March through June), Byron is serving as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School. During his time at Stanford, Byron will conduct research on innovation, leadership, technology, and legal education.

John Tehranian

• On April 10, John was the keynote lunchtime speaker at the annual Entertainment & Sports Law Symposium at Chapman University, Fowler School of Law. This year’s Symposium theme was Behind the Mask: Name, Image, Likeness, and John’s talk was entitled, Propertizing Personhood: NIL rights & Equality in the Age of AI. In his remarks, John offered an alternative history of the emergence of NIL rights, an examination of the utilitarian and egalitarian underpinnings of the NIL legal infrastructure, and the challenges it faces with the growth of AI.

Rachel VanLandingham

• Throughout April, Rachel had extensive media engagement (over thirty interviews resulting in published quotes or TV appearances), much centered on President Trump’s threats to commit war crimes in the continuing armed conflict between the U.S. and Iran. For example, her interview on PBS Newshour was linked to by Fareed Zakaria as well as in the New York Times as the leading explanation regarding why Trump’s comments were so legally troubling (transcript reposted by the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security, also receiving a shout out by Anthony Scaramucci). Other notable appearances include her interviews on WNYC in New York, BBC TV and radio (and the Guardian and Intercept), the Middle Eastern Al Araybian, and various Australian, Canadian and French outlets. Rachel also appeared numerous times on both MS Now and CBS.
• Rachel published several essays and Op-Eds in April. These publications include this piece co-authored over Easter weekend on threatened war crimes, this Op-Ed outlining the harm Trump’s rhetoric inflicts on US service members, and this piece regarding Secretary Hegseth’s termination of the mandatory flu vaccine for service members.
• On April 20, Rachel gave a lecture at the Osher Institute at the University of San Diego on the legality of military orders during the second Trump Administration.

Bryce Wooley

• On May 19, Bryce presented at the 13th Annual Association of Academic Support Educators Conference in Las Vegas. With Dean April Vincent of The Colleges of Law and Professor Stacey Kim-Jackson of Western State College of Law (both former Southwestern faculty), they presented Power Play: How Low-Stakes Play Has a Big Impact on Studying for the High-Stakes Bar Exam, which dove into the learning science behind ludic pedagogy and provided tools colleagues could use to make their courses and bar prep programs more playful.