David Tanenhaus

What's the most important thing you are working on right now?

Professor Michael Green (UNLV History Department) and I are serving as co-chairs of the Local Arrangements Committee for the American Society for Legal History (ASLH). For the first time in the Society’s history, the 2017 annual meeting will take place in Nevada from October 26-28. The law school is the principal sponsor of the conference, and many of the sessions will be at Boyd. I’m absolutely thrilled that Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin of Harvard Law School will deliver the Plenary Address at UNLV on Nevada Day. Her topic is “The Long Resistance and Historical Memory.” We’re filming her lecture which will air in the future on the local PBS station. 

The Society has a longstanding relationship with the law school. From 2004 to 2012, Boyd was the institutional home for the journal Law and History Review (LHR), which Cambridge University Press publishes on behalf of the Society. During those years, I served as the editor of LHR and was fortunate enough to work closely with the brilliant legal historian Dan Hamilton. It’s now a joy to work with Dean Dan to welcome ASLH to Las Vegas as this Society has been our intellectual home.
 
What is the most significant issue facing your field and how should it be addressed?
 
Legal historians are playing prominent roles as public intellectuals in international conversations about law, freedom, justice, and governance. In this country, many are using their expertise to help courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, to answer constitutional questions about issues such as the emoluments clause, free speech, gay rights, gerrymandering, and the administration’s travel bans. 

Which of your recent books or articles should I read?
 
The University Press of Kansas just published a new edition of my book The Constitutional Rights of Children: In re Gault and American Juvenile Justice upon the 50th anniversary of the case. It includes expanded coverage of the Roberts Court’s juvenile justice decisions, explains how disregard for children’s constitutional rights led to the “Kids for Cash” scandal in Pennsylvania, and discusses new legal developments in the Gault case.