FedSoc Forums

Join us for a teleforum with Robert L. Strayer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Cyber and International Communications and Information Policy, who will talk about the State Department’s efforts under the National Cyber Strategy and Cybersecurity Executive Order 13800 as well as international diplomatic engagement to facilitate the adoption of secure and reliable telecommunication technology.
Featuring:
Robert L. Strayer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Cyber and International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. Department of State

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

As Thucydides recorded Pericles’ famous funeral oration, the mayor of Athens exhorted citizens: “[J]udging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valor, never decline the dangers of war.” Likely gleaning from the themes in this oration, President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address sounded the same calls to honor battle sacrifices in the name of a higher cause. What are the other analogs between the Athenian Greeks and today's Americans that would compare the challenges and alert the defenders of civilization?
The ancient Greeks, as exemplified by the Athenians, projected legendary power in the preservation of their freedom and autonomy. The premise of the book Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order holds that much of the resolve to confront war -- and thus also to deter war – came from “keeping comfort with their worst fears.” What does the Greek embrace of tragedy while maintaining a general sense of optimism teach us today?
The authors of Lessons of Tragedy conclude that America is in a state of amnesia just when authoritarianism is advancing and the global balance of power is gradually shifting. They write that there is no night watchman and no supreme authority to enforce order. Does this state of affairs create a vacuum that becomes an actual invitation to chaos?
Featuring:
Dr. Charles Edel, Senior Fellow, United States Studies Centre, and co-author, The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order

RG & GR Harris Funeral Homes has been serving the Detroit area for more than 100 years. To ensure that the family members and friends of a deceased love one are focused on processing their grief, the funeral home has professional conduct and dress codes. In 2007, the funeral home hired Stephens, a biological male, who agreed to abide by these codes, including the company’s sex-specific dress policy, in his work as a funeral home director. Six years later, Stephens approached the funeral home’s owner, said that he was actually a woman trapped in a man’s body, and expressed his intent to come to work wearing a dress. The owner was very concerned about Stephens and also about other employees and clients; he ultimately determined that it was best for everyone to part ways. The EEOC sued and claimed that this was “sex” discrimination under Title VII. The 6th Circuit agreed, but the Supreme Court has now agreed to hear the case. Although the federal government now concedes that it was wrong in the interpretation of Title VII that it persuaded the 6th Circuit to adopt, Stephens, represented by the ACLU, defends the 6th Circuit’s ruling. This teleforum will examine: (1) whether the public meaning of “sex” discrimination when Title VII was enacted in 1964 included gender identity and transgender status, and (2) whether Stephens has stated a claim for sex stereotyping under Title VII.
Featuring:
John Bursch, Founder, Bursch Law PLLC and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy and Senior Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

On May 8, 2019, the Ninth Circuit issued a 2-1 decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Shiroma. In Cedar Point, California agricultural growers asked the court to invalidate an Agricultural Labor Relations Board regulation that allowed union organizers to come on to the growers’ property to solicit workers to join the union for 3 hours per day and 120 days per year. The growers contend that the regulation amounts to a physical taking under the Fifth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit majority rejected that argument, and held that the physical takings doctrine did not apply because the union organizers were not allowed around-the-clock access to the growers’ property. The dissent would have held for the growers, and reasoned that the Supreme Court has never endorsed a law that allowed non-employee labor organizers to enter a grower’s private property for substantial periods of time, when none of the employees live on the employer’s premises.
Join the teleforum to hear reactions from Wen Fa and Bethany Berger. Wen Fa is an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to vindicating property rights and individual liberty. Mr. Fa was the primary drafter of the Growers’ Ninth Circuit brief and argued the case before the Ninth Circuit panel. Bethany Berger is a law professor at the University of Connecticut and an expert on property law.
Featuring:
Wen Fa, Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Prof. Bethany Berger, Wallace Stevens Professor of Law, University of Connecticut School of Law

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

In Return Mail v. US Postal Service, the Supreme Court held that the United States Government does not qualify as a “person” in the organic statutory provisions that created the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (PTAB) in the American Invents Act of 2011. The patent statutes provide that a “person” may file petitions in the various administrative review programs at the PTAB, i.e., inter partes review, post-grant view, and covered business methods. Thus, governmental agencies may not file petitions to cancel patents at the PTAB. The PTAB has been a flashpoint of controversy in the patent system. It was created to provide efficient and quick cancelation of mistakenly issued patents that hampered the innovation economy. Since it began operations in 2012, the PTAB has been accused by judges, lawyers, and commentators of engaging in procedural and substantive “shenanigans.” With very high cancelation rates, one federal judge has called it a “death squad[] killing property rights.” This Courthouse Steps teleforum will review Return Mail v. US Postal Service and discuss its legal and policy implications for the patent system, the PTAB, the innovation economy, and limitations on federal executive power.
Featuring:
Prof. Adam MacLeod, Professor of Law, Faulkner University
Matthew J. Dowd, Founder and Partner, Dowd Scheffel PLLC

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

Following passage of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act in November 2018, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was established under the Department of Homeland Security. CISA is responsible for protecting the Nation’s critical infrastructure from physical and cyber threats. CISA Chief Counsel Daniel Sutherland and Raj Shah, technology entrepreneur and former head of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), will discuss the various ways that the federal government and the private sector work to counter emerging threats to our virtual and physical networks and infrastructure.
Featuring:
Daniel Sutherland, Chief Counsel at CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency)
Raj Shah, Technology Entrepreneur and former Managing Director, Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx)
Moderator: Daniel West, Associate, SCF Partners
Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

LIBOR is a hugely important interest rate benchmark, used globally and embedded in over $200 trillion of financial contracts. It has its notable shortcomings, including having been subject to scandalous attempts at manipulation. Financial regulators, notably the New York Fed, want it to disappear and be replaced by another index. But can the regulators succeed in their effort? Will LIBOR disappear and be replaced? By SOFR or something else? Or will it survive, perhaps as one of multiple competing benchmarks?

Dr. Oonagh McDonald thoroughly explores LIBOR's evolution, scandals, and the issues of its future in her new book, "Holding Bankers to Account." Oonagh will present the lessons of history and the state of current debates. Gary Kalbaugh of ING Financial and Columbia Law School and Alex Pollock of the R Street Institute will be discussants.

Featuring:

Prof. Gary Kalbaugh, Special Professor of Law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law

Alex J. Pollock, Distinguished Senior Fellow, R Street Institute

Dr. Oonagh McDonald, CBE, Philosophy Lecturer at the University of Bristol, Member of the British Parliament 1976-1987, Member of the Front Bench Treasury Team, Author of Several Books, Including her Newest One "Holding Bankers to Account"

The Class Action Fairness Act permits "any defendant" to remove a class action to federal court. May a third-party defendant brought into a suit through a counterclaim by the original defendant remove a class action to federal court? In Home Depot v. Jackson, the Court, in a 5-4 decision by Justice Thomas, held that "any defendant" does not include third-party defendants in either the Class Action Fairness Act or in other removals under 28 U.S.C. § 1446. Justice Alito's dissent questioned that statutory interpretation. Ted Frank will join us to discuss this decision and its implications.
Featuring:Ted Frank, Director of Litigation and Senior Attorney, Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute

A 2018 federal circuit court ruling rejected compensation to the plaintiff in a case in which the government took through eminent domain a privately owned airline terminal and physically demolished it. The plaintiffs, now seeking cert before the U.S. Supreme Court, spent $17 million building that terminal at Dallas Love Field Airport. The U.S. Court of Claims ruled that the taking of the terminal was worth more than $133 million, but the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, declaring the terminal's value to be zero, as the investment property had yet to earn a positive cash flow. Dana Berliner and Nancie Marzulla will join us to discuss this case and its broader implications.
Featuring:
Dana Berliner, Senior Vice President and Litigation Director, Institute for Justice
Nancie Marzulla, Founding Partner, Marzulla Law, LLC

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.