Professor Richard Peltz-Steele presented on a panel called “Teaching Law in the Trump Era” at the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association (LSA) in Washington, D.C., on June 1. Peltz-Steele talked specifically about teaching 1L Torts with the defamation claims of Summer Zervos against the President, and First Lady Melania Trump against blogger Webster Tarpley.
/filters:quality(90)/prod01/production-cdn-pxl/media/umassdartmouth/school-of-law/news/logo-dc-2019-1.png?text=945+WebP){kind=logo}
UMass Law Professor Richard Peltz-Steele presented on a panel called “Teaching Law in the Trump Era” at the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association (LSA) in Washington, D.C., on June 1. Organized by the LSA collaborative research network on legal education, the panel gathered five academics to talk about teaching law relative to current events in the Trump presidency.
“The Trump presidency has reportedly attracted a new wave of law school applicants who are motivated by issues ranging from sexual assault, to racial justice, to the rights of immigrants, to the basic foundations of the rule of law,” the LSA program explained. “[A]ccomplished law faculty who teach a wide range of legal curriculum,” Peltz-Steele and co-panelists offered perspectives on teaching headline stories in contemporary law and politics.
Peltz-Steele talked specifically about teaching 1L Torts with the defamation claims of Summer Zervos against the President, and First Lady Melania Trump against blogger Webster Tarpley. He incorporated into the presentation anonymized reflections on the material authored by five UMass Law students and members of UMass Law’s academic support staff. Peltz-Steele wrote about his observations on his blog, The Savory Tort.
Other participants on the LSA panel were John Bliss (chair) and Rashmi Goel, University of Denver Sturm College of Law; Scott Cummings, UCLA School of Law; and Gwendolyn Leachman, University of Wisconsin Law School.
Professor Peltz-Steele and Law Library Assistant Dean Misty Peltz-Steele are collaborating on production of an open-source resource for law teachers to teach from litigation involving the First Family.