Symposium 2024: The Law of Protest

The Columbia Law Review is proud to be hosting a Symposium on The Law of Protest. The conference will be held from 9:30am–3:45pm on November 15, 2024, at Columbia University’s Faculty House, and lunch will be provided. Registration is now live: https://cglink.me/2it/r1927261. More information about the panels, speakers, and forthcoming pieces of scholarship can be found below. Please direct any questions about the event to our Symposium & Book Review Editor, Shaunak Puri, at symposium@columbialawreview.org.

For Review Before Attending the Symposium

Five Pieces of original scholarship will be presented at this Symposium, each to be published in CLR‘s June 2025 Issue. To follow along with the discussion and provide feedback to the authors during Q&A, please review the following working drafts or excerpts. The CLR editors have drafted a cover page for each which includes recommendations for what portions to read if you are short on time. 

Please note that the cover pages and the working drafts are unpublished. They should not be distributed beyond the Symposium nor cited in this form.

Why “The Law of Protest”?

Protests have long been part of the fabric of American society and politics, dating back to the “Germantown Protest” of 1688 through the Civil Rights Era and beyond. They have become increasingly prevalent and wide scale in the past few years, including 2017 protests of President Trump’s “Muslim Ban”; 2020 protests following the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor; the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, which many claimed was a protest against perceived election fraud; and, in the past year, mass protests asserting a wide variety of perspectives on Palestine and Israel. Columbia University, specifically, has a long tradition of protest, with students using their voices to take on global issues such as the Vietnam War, South African Apartheid, and climate change. Though protests are an increasingly common aspect of life in the United States, they are governed by murky and often ill-enforced laws and policies. 

This Symposium will shine a much needed light on the law of protest, bringing together the perspectives of scholars, practitioners, and activists. We hope that this conference can serve as both a timely response to questions that have been raised by recent events on campuses across the country and a timeless conversation about an area of law of critical importance to American society. As student scholars and future lawyers, we feel the best way we can contribute to the current dialogue is to engage with and critically examine the current legal and political frameworks that shape protests, reflecting on how they have developed and imagining ways they might change. We hope that people from across the political spectrum will join us!

Thank You to Our Generous Sponsors

  • Silver Tier: Boston University School of Law & University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law
  • Bronze Tier: Brennan Center for Justice & University of St. Thomas School of Law

Symposium Preview – Speakers & Panelists:

10:00am. Second Annual Karl Llewellyn Lecture: Justin Hansford (Howard University)

10:30am. Panel 1: Protests & The Constitution – The First Amendment

  • Moderator: Jeremy Kessler, Columbia Law School
  • Panelists: Tabatha Abu El-Haj (Drexel), Evelyn Douek (Stanford), Eugene Volokh (UCLA), Charles F. Walker (Former Pro Bono Co-Chair, Skadden)
  • Piece Presented: A Right of Peaceable Assembly by Prof. Abu El-Haj

11:30am. Panel 2: Protests Through History

  • Moderator: Bernard E. Harcourt, Columbia Law School
  • Panelists: Deborah Dinner (Cornell), Karuna Mantena (CU Political Science), Dylan C. Penningroth (UC Berkeley), Etienne Toussaint (Univ. of South Carolina)
  • Piece Presented: Afrofuturism in Crisis: Dissent & Revolution by Prof. Toussaint

1:10pm. Panel 3: Who Protests, and Where? Examining Protest Spaces

  • Moderator: Elora Mukherjee, Columbia Law School
  • Panelists: Grant Christensen (Stetson), Kevin McCarthy (CLR Staff Editor), Karen Pita Loor (Boston University), Gali Racabi (Cornell)
  • Piece Presented: The Right to Protest in Indian Country by Prof. Christensen

2:10pm. Panel 4: Policing Protests

  • Moderator: Amber Baylor, Columbia Law School
  • Panelists: Jenny Carroll (Texas A&M), Rachel Moran (Univ. of St. Thomas – MN), Nick Robinson (International Center for Not-for-Profit Law), Sunita Patel (UCLA)
  • Pieces Presented: Overbroad Protest Laws by Prof. Moran & Campus Protest Police by Prof. Patel

3:15pm. Closing Keynote Address: Derecka Purnell

Prior Columbia Law Review Symposia

2023. A Symposium on “Property and Education.” Vol. 123, No. 5.

2021. The Other 98%: Racial, Gender, And Economic Injustice in State Civil Courts. Vol 122, No. 5.

2019. Common Law for the Age of AI. Vol. 119, No. 7.

2017. The Legacy of Constance Baker Motley: Education, Equality, and the Law in the United States Today. Vol. 117, No. 7.