Amicus Curiae Lecture Series to explore the impact of Title IX in upcoming event

Marshall University will present Dr. Anne Marie Lofaso as the first speaker of its Spring 2018 Amicus Curiae Lecture Series. She will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 1, in the Brad D. Smith Foundation Hall on “The Impact of Title IX on Women and Society: Two Steps Forward, One Step Backward.” This lecture, offered as part of Women’s History Month, will explore the impact that Title IX has had on young female athletes, from the personal point of view of a first beneficiary of that law.

Lofaso is the Arthur B. Hodges Professor of Law at West Virginia University College of Law, where she teaches labor and employment law, jurisprudence, and comparative and international work law. She is also currently a research associate for the Oxford Human Rights Hub at the University of Oxford, England, and a research scholar for the New York University Center for Labor and Employment.

“We are delighted to welcome Dr. Lofaso to speak about an important milestone for women in education and athletics,” said Patricia Proctor, director of the Simon Perry Center for Constitutional Democracy. “This milestone has had a tremendous impact on society and Dr. Lofaso can address this not only from a legal and cultural perspective, but also from her own experience as an athlete.”

Lofaso earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard University, her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford, where she read law and jurisprudence as a Fulbright Scholar.  Between 1983 and 1986, Lofaso was a diver for the Harvard Women’s Varsity Team, an NCAA Division I program.

In 2016, she served as the Keeley Visiting Fellow, Wadham College, University of Oxford, and a visiting scholar on the Oxford law faculty. She is a four-time winner of her law school’s outstanding faculty scholarship award, 2010 WVU Law professor of the year, and recipient of the 2013 WVU Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching and the 2014 Claude Worthington Benedum Distinguished Scholar Award. Before teaching law school, she spent 10 years as an attorney with the National Labor Relations Board’s Appellate and Supreme Court branches.

The lecture series continues April 5 with a lecture by Dr. Sophia Z. Lee on “The Workplace Constitution: From the New Deal to the New Right.” Lee is a professor of law and history and deputy dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

The final lecture of the series this semester will be April 16 by Dr. Jan-Werner Mueller, whose lecture will be titled, “After Populism.” Mueller is a professor of politics at Princeton University. There, he also directs the Project in the History of Political Thought.

All lectures will begin at 7 p.m. in the Brad D. Smith Foundation Hall.

The Amicus Curiae Lecture Series is supported by a grant from the West Virginia Humanities Council. For more information, contact Patricia Proctor, director of the Simon Perry Center for Constitutional Democracy by e-mail at patricia.proctor@marshall.edu or by phone at 304-696-2801.