Recent News

As incoming students last year, 2L students Megan Lipsky and Chiemeka Onwuanaegbule participated in the inaugural class of RISE, a program for applicants from historically underrepresented backgrounds. This year, 67 incoming J.D. students will participate in the pre-Orientation from August 18 to 23.

RISE Program Helps 1Ls From Historically Underrepresented Backgrounds to Thrive

August 19, 2019 Civil Rights & Antidiscrimination Race & Law

When Megan Lipsky (Lโ€™21) was preparing to go to Georgetown Law from the University of Miami in the summer of 2018, she learned about a new Georgetown program called RISE. Officially launched last year, RISE is designed to support incoming J.D. students from backgrounds historically underrepresented in law school and lawyering โ€” including but not limited to racial, ethnic, geographic, socioeconomic, and first-generation college backgrounds.

Stock photo of Muslim women next to a tent outside a Nairobi court. In the spring of 2019, the High Court of Kenya ruled that many of the nationโ€™s laws violate the constitutional rights of children of unmarried parents. Alumni of Georgetown Law's International Women's Human Rights Clinic filed the complaint in the case back in 2013.

International Womenโ€™s Human Rights Clinic: Work Pays Off for Mothers, Children in Kenya

July 23, 2019 Civil Rights & Antidiscrimination Clinics Feminism & Gender Studies Impacting Change International & Comparative Law

Lamiya Rahman (Cโ€™08, Lโ€™14) and Pepis Rodriguez (Lโ€™15) never met the plaintiff, but they knew the legal challenges she faced as an unwed mother in Kenya. Back in 2013, as students in the International Womenโ€™s Human Rights Clinic at Georgetown Law, they had drafted a complaint and brief to be filed on her behalf in Africa.

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. talks to the 2019 graduating class.

Reconstruction and the โ€œUnfinished Revolutionโ€: A Conversation for the Graduates Between Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Georgetown Law Dean William M. Treanor

May 15, 2019 Civil Rights & Antidiscrimination Faculty

The story of Reconstruction and its overthrow, after only a dozen years, said Henry Louis Gates, Jr., โ€œshatters all notions that history is a straight line, drawn inexorably towards progress. And in that shattering is a lesson for all of us: vigilance.โ€

Professor Rosa Brooks, right (with Distinguished Visitor from Practice Christy Lopez) was installed as Georgetown Lawโ€™s inaugural Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and Policy on March 20.

Professor Rosa Brooks Installed as the Inaugural Scott K. Ginsburg Professor

March 22, 2019 Civil Rights & Antidiscrimination Criminal Law Human Rights & Immigration International & Comparative Law Race & Law

โ€œJust as our recent wars have mostly been against those who are poor, those who can easily be demonized and viewed as โ€˜otherโ€™ by the average American โ€” so too, our criminal law has tended to be enforced primarily and disproportionately against the poor and people of color,โ€ said Professor Rosa Brooks, who was installed as Georgetown Lawโ€™s inaugural Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and Policy on March 20.

Professor Sheryll Cashin, seated between Professor Jill Morrison and Professor Paul Butler, at "Can I Live? Black Women's Lives in America" at Georgetown Law on February 11.

โ€œCan I Live?โ€ Examines Black Womenโ€™s Lives in America

February 15, 2019 Civil Rights & Antidiscrimination Feminism & Gender Studies Race & Law

Sandra Bland, who died in prison after being arrested for a traffic violation. Aiyana Stanley-Jones, a seven-year-old shot and killed by police during a raid. Renisha McBride, shot and killed by a homeowner when she knocked on the door of a house. Black women in America have lost their lives, and have been subjected to other horrific injustices, just as men have been. Yet America does not often remember their names.