The sixth annual Donald C. Clark, Jr. ’79 Endowed Law and Religion Lecture, titled “The Town of Greece and its Impact on the Establishment Clause,” will take place at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 27, on the Rutgers–Camden campus.
Confirmed panelists featured in the program, include Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State; Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel at the Becket Fund; and Perry Dane, a Rutgers Law–Camden professor. The panel will be moderated by Clark, who serves as general counsel for the United Church of Christ.
Organized by the student-run Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, the annual endowed lecture encourages comprehensive dialogue on law and religion outside of the legal classroom.
According to third-year law student John Yi, editor-in-chief of the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, the academic publication that organizes the endowed lecture, this year’s program will give students an opportunity to hear how current issues are impacting the practice of law and religion.
“As a former history teacher, whenever I had an opportunity to make the content that I taught relevant and relatable to today’s world, I jumped all over it,” says Yi. “The Supreme Court is hearing a potential blockbuster case, because of its implications for the Establishment Clause, and we are lucky to have attracted three prominent experts on the topic to Rutgers-Camden to provide their insight.”
Encouraging comprehensive dialogue on law and religion outside of the legal classroom is precisely why Clark endowed this annual lecture at Rutgers Law–Camden. “Religion clause jurisprudence is not just a theoretical exercise. It has real meaning for millions of adherents of faiths throughout the country that requires lawyers of those faith communities to understand, interpret, and apply the legal principles within their faith,” says Clark, a former litigation partner in some of Chicago's largest law firms, and former managing partner of his own litigation boutique. The Rutgers Law–Camden alumnus now provides legal counsel and representation to clergy, churches, and religious judicatories throughout the country in his role as general counsel for the United Church of Christ.
He credits his Rutgers Law–Camden education for providing him with a strong foundation of critical legal analysis that he continues to carry with him throughout his professional career.
“[The law school] places a premium on critical legal analysis and the importance of it being applied to all legal issues and all aspects of life in which legal issues arise,” says Clark. “I’m interested in making today’s students aware of an example of how the foundational principle of critical legal thinking has real meaning throughout one’s career and everyday life.”
All three speakers will be featured in the spring issue of the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion.
More information about the student-run Rutgers Law–Camden publication, founded in 1999, is available at lawandreligion.com.
The public lecture will take place in Penn 401, accessible from the side of the Paul Robeson Library on Fifth Street, between Cooper Street and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge on the Rutgers–Camden campus. For directions to campus, visit camden.rutgers.edu.
