Harvard Law Professor Guy-Uriel E. Charles to Deliver 2024 Constitution Day Lecture

Tuesday, September 10th, 2024

The Drake Constitutional Law Center is pleased to welcome Professor Guy-Uriel E. Charles as the 2024 Constitution Day speaker. He will present “Race and American Democracy” on Thursday, Sept. 19, at 3 p.m. in Cartwright Hall with livestream and audio on demand options. This event is free and open to the public. Register here.

Guy-Uriel E. Charles is the Charles J. Ogletree Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on civil procedure, election law, constitutional law, race and law, critical race theory, legislation and statutory interpretation, and law, identity, and politics.

He is currently working on a book, with Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, on the past and future of voting rights, under contract with Cambridge University Press, which argues that the race-based model that underlies the Voting Rights Act has run its course. They assert that the best way to protect against racial discrimination in voting is through a universal, positive rights model of political participation. He is also co-editing, with Aziza Ahmed, a handbook entitled Race, Racism, and the Law under contract with Edward Elgar Publishing. This book will survey the current state of research on race and the law in the United States and aims to influence the intellectual agenda of the field.

“We are very excited that Professor Charles will be at Drake for a few days,” said Professor Mark Kende, director of the Drake Constitutional Law Center and professor of law. “He is a leading scholar on racial issues. We are also honored to be chosen by the Order of the Coif to host him.”

The Drake University Constitution Day Lecture is held annually to commemorate the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787, and to recognize all U.S. citizens.