News Release
Legal ethics professor Leslie Griffin to deliver the 10th Annual McElroy Lecture on law & religion
University of Houston Legal Ethics Professor Leslie Griffin will be the guest speaker for University of Detroit Mercy School of Law's 10th Annual McElroy Lecture on Law and Religion. The lecture will be held on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 5:30 p.m. at St. Peter and Paul's Church, with a reception in the Law School Atrium following the event.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." What if the drafters used the words "practice of religion" instead of "religion" How would this change the jurisprudence surrounding this part of our Constitution? Griffin will address this compelling question, focusing on government funding for religious organizations, public school prayer and free exercise claims.
Professor Griffin is the inaugural holder of University of Houston's Larry and Joanne Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics, and teaches constitutional law, torts and legal ethics. She is the author of Law and Religion: Cases and Materials (Foundation Press, 2007), which combines her academic interests in law and religion. The book offers an interdisciplinary approach to both law and religion. It combines a thorough academic review of broad legal coverage extending beyond the Supreme Court's First Amendment cases to other federal and state cases about a wide range of religious issues.
Griffin holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She has been a visiting professor at the George Washington University Law School, the University of Alabama School of Law, the University of Utah College of Law, and Georgetown University Law Center, and has held research fellowships at the Harvard University Program in Ethics and the Professions as well as the Emory University School of Law Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion. Prior to joining the Houston faculty, she clerked for the Honorable Mary M. Schroeder of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and was an assistant counsel in the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility. Griffin was elected to the American Law Institute in 2002.
UDM's annual McElroy Lecture is made possible through a major gift from the Philip J. McElroy estate to establish the Center of Law and Religion at UDM's school of Law. Philip J. McElroy was a recognized corporate and civic leader and received his bachelor, master, and doctor of law degrees from the University. In 1948 he established a law firm in Farmington Hills, presently known and McElroy and Pheney. He passed away in February 1993. Throughout his life, Mr. McElroy maintained a steady commitment to his alma mater.
Release date: March 04, 2008
# # #
