Lecture Honoring Professor Jack Chin
The new Edward L. Barrett Chair of Law, Gabriel "Jack" Chin, gave a lecture in connection with his installation as chair. Professor Chin presented a provocative lecture on March 1 entitled "Is the United States a 'White' Country? The Problem of Immigration Policy." He reviewed the historical influence of race and racism in American law. A full Kalmanovitz Appellate Courtroom was enthralled by the lecture.
Professor Chin was appointed to the chair in 2016. He earned degrees from Wesleyan, Michigan, and Yale. He clerked for a federal judge and practiced law with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, as well as with the Legal Aid Society of New York. Prior to joining King Hall, Professor Chin taught at the Arizona, Cincinnati, NYU, and Western New England law schools.
Professor Chin’s scholarship focuses on immigration law, criminal procedure, and Race and Law, and regularly appears in the nation’s top law reviews. He is among the most-cited criminal law and procedure scholars in the nation. Justice Alito cited Professor Chin in the landmark Supreme Court immigration case Padilla v. Kentucky, and Justice Sotomayor cited him in her dissent in Utah v. Strieff.
Professor Chin and his students have worked to repeal Jim Crow laws and successfully petitioned the Ohio legislature to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, 136 years after the state disapproved it. He and his students also worked to repeal anti-Asian land laws that were still on the books in Kansas, New Mexico, and Wyoming. More recently, Professor Chin succeeded in righting another historic wrong when he and his King Hall students successfully petitioned the California Supreme Court on behalf of Hong Yen Chang, who was denied a license to practice law in California more than a century ago as a result of laws that discriminated against Chinese immigrants. Professor Chin has shown a special interest in research that shines a light on unjust laws and policies, forcing us to confront the institutionalized racism that motivated them.