The Promise of Voter Equality:
Examining the Voting Rights Act at 40

Agenda				Register Information on the VRA

Voting Rights Symposium Prequel Event
Thursday, October 20, 2005
USC Law School Auditorium
4:30 PM

Voting Rights: A Historical Perspective on the African-American Struggle for the Right to Vote

• Professor Steven Lawson, Rutgers University History Department
• Peyton McCrary, Historian, United States Department of Justice, Voting Rights Division
• Professor Lewis Burke, University of South Carolina School of Law
• Moderator: Professor Cleveland Sellers, Chair of African American Studies, University of South Carolina

Professor Lawson, author of Black Ballots, will discuss the African-American campaign for full enfranchisement that culminates in the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Peyton McCrary will then discuss the history of the implementation of the Voting Rights Act from 1965 to the present. Professor Burke will conclude the program by specifically addressing the efforts by African-American lawyers and activists in South Carolina to enforce the right to vote.

Voting Rights Act Symposium
Friday, October 21, 2005
Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center
8:30 AM

8:30 Registration

9:00 Session 1: The Supreme Court's Approach to the Protection of Voting Rights

Professor Rick Hasen, Loyola Law School (Los Angeles)

Professor Grant Hayden, Hofstra University Law School

10:00 Break

10:15 Session 2: Anticipating the 2007 Preclearance Reauthorization Debate

Professor Guy-Uriel Charles, University of Minnesota Law School

Debo Adegbile, NAACP-LDF

11:15 Break

11:30 Session 3: Obstacles to Minority Participation in the Election Process

Professor Daniel Tokaji, Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law

Professor Terry Smith, Fordham Law School

12:30 Lunch

2:00 Session 4: Race, Redistricting and Representation

Laughlin McDonald, ACLU Voting Rights Project / Southern Regional Office

Professor Kenneth Whitby, USC Political Science Dept./African American Studies Program

Professor Katharine Inglis Butler, University of South Carolina School of Law

3:30 Break

3:45 Session 5: Recent South Carolina Voting Rights Litigation

Panelists will include litigators and judges who have participated in recent South Carolina redistricting litigation: Judge Reginald Lloyd, Judge Joe Anderson, A. Lee Parks, and Robert Hunter, Jr.. I.S. Leevy Johnson will serve as panel moderator.

Both Thursday and Friday's events are free and open to the public. We invite members of the public interested in attending to please register with Cyndi Nickerson (nickerson@law.sc.edu) to ensure adequate seating and refreshments available at the event. Lawyers seeking Continuing Legal Education Credit for the event must register with the S.C. Bar CLE Division.