Program Description
"The Fourteenth Amendment is perhaps the single most important – and most controversial – part of the United States Constitution. Retired Oregon Supreme Court Justice Jack Landau, who teaches Constitutional Law at Lewis & Clark Law School and Oregon Constitutional Law at Willamette University College of Law, will review the origins of the Fourteenth Amendment and its ratification. Included will be a discussion of how Oregon opposed ratification of the Amendment. He will provide a brief summary of the history of the United States Supreme Court’s early decisions limiting the impact of the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Court’s later case law giving it more sweeping effect. He will conclude with a discussion of contemporary controversies over what the Amendment says about birthright citizenship, qualifications for federal elective office, affirmative action, and the right to abortion. Justice Landau’s talk will be followed by a panel discussion with Willamette law professors Steve Green, Norman Williams, and Robin Maril.
The Honorable Jack L. Landau served as an Associate Justice on the Oregon Supreme Court from 2011 through 2017. Before his election to the Supreme Court, Justice Landau served as a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals for 18 years, including 12 years as a presiding judge on one of the court’s three-judge panels. He served in the Oregon Department of Justice, first as Attorney-in-Charge of the department’s Special Litigation Unit and later as the Deputy Attorney General.
Justice Landau has taught as an adjunct professor at Willamette University College of Law since 1993. He also volunteers for the Classroom Law Project and regularly speaks to high school civics classes around the state. "