Symposium 2008–2009
Examining Our Priorities: The Relationship
Between National Security
and Other Fundamental Values
Vermont Law Review hosted "Examining Our Priorities: The Relationship Between National Security and Other Fundamental Values" on Friday October 17, 2008. Louis Fisher, author of The Constitution and 9/11: Recurring Threats to America's Freedoms, was the keynote speaker. Panels included:
■ Vermont's Confidentiality of Library Patrons Act, led by Gail Weymouth, Library Director, and Jane Woldow, Collection Development Librarian at Vermont Law School.
■ Environmental Concerns Through the Lens of National Security, led by Brian Segee, Staff Attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, and Joel Reynolds, Senior Attorney and Director of NRDC's Marine Mammal Protection Project.
■ The Threat of Unpopular Ideas, led by Will Potter, Freelance Reporter, Lee Hall, Director of Friends of Animals, and Odette Wilkens, Executive Director of Equal Justice.
■ Immigration and National Security, led by Arthur Edersheim, Staff Attorney at South Royalton Legal Clinic and Assistant Professor of Law at Vermont Law School, and Leslie Holman, Attorney.
Speakers
Retta Dunlap is currently the Executive Director of Vermonters
for Better Education. She has four grown children and is a life long advocate for parental rights. She works not only as an
advocate for and with parents on educational issues, but she also
lobbies at the Legislature in Montpelier to expand education
opportunities for all the children of Vermont through parental
choice in education. Retta is also a commissioner on Vermont's
Commission on Women, on the Board of Vermont Right to Life, director
of Vermont Home Education Network, chair of the Woodbury School
Board, and will gradate from Johnson State College in 2009 with a
degree in Political Science.
Louis Fisher is Specialist in Constitutional Law with the
Law Library of the Library of Congress, after working for the
Congressional Research Service from 1970 to 2006. During his
service with CRS he was research director of the House
Iran-Contra Committee in 1987, writing major sections of the
final report. Dr. Fisher has been invited to testify before
Congress on such issues as war powers, state secrets, NSA
surveillance, executive spending discretion, presidential
reorganization authority, Congress and the Constitution, the
legislative veto, the item veto, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act,
executive privilege, executive lobbying, CIA whistleblowing,
covert spending, the pocket veto, recess appointments, the
budget process, the balanced budget amendment, biennial
budgeting, and presidential impoundment powers.
Allen Gilbert is executive director of the ACLU of
Vermont. He has a background in education, and came to the ACLU
through his involvement in a successful education equity
lawsuit. Gilbert was chair of his local school board when it
became a plaintiff in the ACLU-Vermont’s “Brigham” lawsuit. The
decision in the case resulted in a comprehensive overhaul of
Vermont’s education funding system. Gilbert led a statewide
advocacy group supporting the equity principles of the “Brigham”
decision. He was also president of the Vermont School Boards
Association. Gilbert’s professional background is in journalism,
teaching, and research. Gilbert holds a bachelor’s degree in
history from Harvard, and a master’s degree in education from
the College of William and Mary.
Lee Hall is a lawyer whose work addresses migration,
anti-terrorism legislation, detentions, and evolving concepts of
personhood. Hall, who has taught both animal law and immigration
law at Rutgers University, is currently the legal director of
the international advocacy group Friends of Animals (founded in
1957). The combined interests in human rights and nonhuman
rights that run through Hall's writings focus on the culture of
the cage, and the concept of transcending it. Hall authored the
book Capers in the Churchyard: Animal Rights Advocacy in the
Age of Terror, and presented "When Does Activism Become
'Terrorism' Under the Law?" in the seminar for the New Jersey
Institute for Continuing Legal Education's Litigation and Defense of Animals (2005).
Will Potter is an award-winning independent journalist
who focuses on how lawmakers and corporations have labeled
animal rights and environmental activists as "eco-terrorists."
Will has written for publications including The Chicago
Tribune, The Dallas Morning News and Legal Affairs,
and has testified before the U.S. Congress about his reporting.
He is the creator of GreenIsTheNewRed.com, where he blogs about
the Green Scare and history repeating itself.
Joel Reynolds joined the staff of the Natural Resources
Defense Council's (NRDC) Los Angeles office as a Senior Attorney
in 1990, after ten years with the Center for Law in the Public
Interest and the Western Center on Law and Poverty, both in Los
Angeles. Mr. Reynolds is Director of NRDC’s Urban Program and
director of the Marine Mammal Protection and Southern California
Ecosystem projects. He currently specializes in issues of
coastal protection, land use, marine mammal protection,
environmental justice, and transportation.
Gail Weymouth is the Library Director at the Sherburne
Memorial Library in Killington, Vermont since 1984.Gail is a
veteran member of the Vermont Library Association and has served on
various committees including the Intellectual Freedom Committee that
she currently chairs. She is co-author of the Vermont Intellectual
Freedom Manual . She also serves as on the American Library
Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee, Privacy Sub-committee
and National Conversation Privacy Steering Committee. She speaks
regularly throughout the state about Intellectual Freedom Issues. In
2002, she received the Sarah C. Hagar Award for outstanding
contributions to librarianship in Vermont.
Odette Wilkens is Executive Director of the Equal Justice
Alliance, a coalition of organizations that she co-founded in
2006 to repeal the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA). She
is a member of the Issues Pertaining to Animals Committee of the
New York City Bar Association. She has been the featured speaker
on AETA at the Minnesota Bar Association’s Continuing Legal
Education program, at the Animal Law Committee of the
Connecticut Bar Association, at the 2008 Connecticut Bar
Association Annual Meeting and at Rutgers Law School. Odette is
also a corporate and transactional attorney specializing in
information technology and e-commerce, and speaks on corporate
records retention policies.
Jane Woldow is a Lawyer Librarian at the Vermont Law
School Library. She teaches the Introduction to Legal Research
course, Advanced Legal Research course and oversees collection
development. Jane received a BS from Tulane University, a JD
from Vermont Law School and an MLS from the State University of
New York at Albany. Before joining the Vermont Law School
Library in 2003, Jane worked for the Middlebury College
Libraries, the Rutland Free Library and as the librarian for the
law firms of Saxer Anderson Wolinsky & Sunshine as well as
Eggleston & Cramer.
Leslie Holman is the founder of Holman Immigration Law
and has been practicing law since 1988. Leslie currently serves
as the Chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association
(AILA) Admissions and Border Enforcement Committee, the Vice
Chair of its CBP Committee, and as the CBP representative to
AILA’s Interagency Committee. In addition she serves as the AILA
New England Chapter’s liaison to local and regional land ports
of entry. This year Leslie was elected to AILA’s Board of
Governors. In addition to her involvement with AILA Leslie is
currently serving a two year term on the Vermont Advisory
Committee to the U.S. Commission of Civil rights.
Arthur Edersheim is one of four experienced attorneys who
supervise the South Royalton Legal Clinic's student clinicians.
He specializes in immigration law, domestic violence law, family
law, landlord-tenant law, and poverty law. He teaches the
immigration law course at Vermont Law School. He is a member of
the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He is the Project
Coordinator for Vermont Immigrant Assistance (VIA) which was
established in 2003 to protect the rights of immigrants in
domestic violence, human rights, and general civil rights in
critical immigration procedures. VIA provides pro bono legal
services in behalf of low-income immigrants and refugees.
Brian Segee is a Staff Attorney for Defenders of Wildlife
in Washington, D.C., where he works to protect native species
and protected lands through litigation, administrative advocacy,
legislative work, and policy analysis. He has led Defenders'
legal efforts to better integrate environmental protection with
national security operations along the southwest border, and
developed and argued Defenders of Wildlife v. Chertoff, a case
challenging border wall construction in Arizona's San Pedro
Riparian National Conservation Area. Brian is a graduate of the
University of Colorado School of Law and has more than a decade
of experience in environmental law.