Denver city councilman to speak April 20 on judicial independence in Colorado as part of IJPM lecture series

Denver city councilman to speak April 20 on judicial independence in Colorado as part of IJPM lecture seriesApril 06, 2009Jaime Winne Alvarez jlwinne@syr.edu

Denver city councilman Chris Nevitt will give the presentation “Labor and Business Unite to Protect Judicial Independence in Colorado” on Monday, April 20, as part of the spring “Law, Politics and the Media” lecture series presented by the Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics and the Media (IJPM). His lecture, which is free and open to the public, will take place from 3:50-5:10 p.m. in Room 204 at the Syracuse University College of Law. Parking is available in SU pay lots.

Nevitt earned a Ph.D. in political science at the University of California, San Diego, in 1996. After teaching for several years at Arizona State University, he moved to Denver. There, he helped found and later headed the Front Range Economic Strategy Center, a research, policy and public interest organizing arm of the metro Denver union movement. In 2007, Nevitt was elected to a seat on the Denver City Council.

The American judicial system today operates in a complex environment of legal principle, political pressure and media coverage. The goal of the “Law, Politics and the Media” lecture series is to provide an introduction to the court system and its environment as a single, integrated subject of study. Throughout the spring semester, sitting judges, practicing lawyers, policymakers and working journalists will be featured speakers. The lecture series is part of an interdisciplinary course on law, politics and the media that is cross-listed between the College of Law, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Maxwell School. The course is taught by SU professors Keith Bybee (IJPM director), Lisa Dolak (IJPM associate director) and Mark Obbie (IJPM associate director), and funded through support from the John Ben Snow Foundation and the Carnegie Corp. of New York.

Launched in September 2006, IJPM is an academic institute devoted to the interdisciplinary study of issues at the intersection of law, politics and the media. A collaborative effort of the College of Law, Maxwell School and Newhouse School, the institute sponsors lectures, conferences and symposia designed to foster discussion and debate among legal scholars, sitting judges and working journalists.

For more information on the “Law, Politics and the Media” lecture series and IJPM, visit http://jpm.syr.edu.