Vibrant Research
4/28/22

The Baldy Center uses multiple means to advance interdisciplinary research on law, legal institutions, and social policy. These include small research grants to faculty, assistance with development of external research proposals, workshops, conferences, the Baldy Fellows program, and a globally accessible working paper series.

While Waiting for Rain
6/14/23

In 2023, The Baldy Center hosted a day-long discussion of the book by John Henry Schlegel, While Waiting for Rain: Community, Law and Economy in a Time of Change.

Illuminating
4/27/22

Environmental governance, legal geography, human rights, courts of law, international trade, intellectual property, social inequality, administrative regulation, state and urban government, the legal profession, family, religion, cultural understandings of law, and much more.

Separate and Unequal
6/14/23

The Law and Society's 2023 meeting centered on the theme, Separate and Unequal. The Baldy Center podcast, Puerto Rico's Constitutional Paradox connects to that theme.

Dr. Mary Frances Berry inspires the UB community
5/16/23
A fascinating lecture by Dr. Mary Frances Berry continues to inspire the UB community. At the event co-sponsored by The Baldy Center, she provided personal insight about her career as an American historian, writer, lawyer, activist and professor who focuses on U.S. constitutional, and legal, African-American history. Dr. Berry is the the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought, History and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. See the gallery of event photos by Douglas Lavere, here.
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FALL CONFERENCES & EVENTS

  • Buddhism and Law International Conference
    9/21/23
    September 29, 30, and October 1, 2023: Join us for the Third International Conference on Buddhism and Law. The conference, hosted by the journal, Buddhism, Law & Society, focuses on the many features of Buddhism, and how law and the state relate to Buddhist actors, institutions, and texts.
  • Reproductive Justice Conference Post Dobbs: It's Not Just Abortion
    9/18/23
    October 20 & 21, 2023: Join us for the event, Reproductive Justice Conference Post-Dobbs: It's Not Just Abortion, co-sponsored by: The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy;  the UB School of Law; the UB Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; and, the WNY Coalition for Reproductive Justice. Facilitator: Lucinda Finley (UB School of Law). 
See all conferences

SPEAKERS 2023 - 2024

  • Cynthia Estlund (NYU Law)
    9/6/23
    SEPTEMBER 22, 2023
    “Democratic Contestation Rights for the Workplaces We Have” 
    ACCESS THE PAPER HERE.
    509 O’Brian Hall, North Campus
    Noon, Reception
    12:30 p.m., Lecture
    Attend in-person or via Zoom registration.
  • Claire Priest (Yale)
    8/31/23
    "From Invasion to Formalization: The Peruvian Origins of the Property Titling Movement"
    NOVEMBER 3, 2023
    Noon, Reception
    12:30 p.m. Lecture
    509 O’Brian Hall, North Campus 
    Attend in-person or via Zoom registration.
    Speaker Bio: Claire Priest is the author of Credit Nation: Property Laws and Institutions in Early America (Princeton University Press). The book describes how even before the United States became a country, laws prioritizing access to credit set colonial America apart from the rest of the world.
  • Tao Dumas
    8/31/23
    “Anyone but the Lawyer: Race, Gender, and Misattribution in the Legal Profession”
    NOVEMBER 17, 2023
    Noon, Reception
    12:30 p.m. Lecture
    509 O’Brian Hall, North Campus 
    Attend in-person or via Zoom registration.
     Speaker Bio: Tao Dumas is associate professor of political science at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ). Dumas' research focuses on the political role of U.S. courts and the ways lawyers shape and work within the legal system. She is interested in how institutional differences across states condition winners and losers in the courts and how attorneys’ experience, expertise, and demographics impact their legal practices. 
  • Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton)
    8/31/23
    “Destroying Democracy by Law.” 
    March 1, 2024
    Noon Reception
    12:30 p.m. Lecture
    509 O’Brian Hall, North Campus 
    Attend in-person or via Zoom registration.
    Speaker Bio: Kim Lane Scheppele is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. She is also a faculty fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Her primary field is the sociology of law and she specializes in ethnographic and archival research on courts and public institutions. Scheppele also works in sociological theory, comparative/historical sociology, political sociology, sociology of knowledge and human rights.  
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The Baldy Center Fellows

  • Charles J. Whalen.
    Charles J. Whalen
    5/9/23

    Charles J. Whalen, an economist with a career spanning three decades, has contributed to national economic policy discussions, equitable regional development, and business success. Learn more.

  • Greta LaFleur
    9/21/23
    DECEMBER 1, 2023  SPEAKER
    Greta LaFleur, The Baldy Center Mid-career Fellow
    How Sex Became Good: The Feminist Movements and Racial Politics That Made Modern Sexuality
    Noon, Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall
    Attend in-person or via Zoom registration.
  • Alan W. Clarke
    8/24/23
    Alan W. Clarke, professor emeritus in the Integrated Studies Program, Utah Valley University, is a senior fellow at The Baldy Center, 2023-24. Clarke holds a Juris Doctor from the College of William and Mary, an LLM from Queen’s University, and a PhD from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. He practiced law after graduating from William and Mary, with a focus on social justice broadly construed, including, civil rights, voting rights, labor organizing, poverty law, and death penalty post-conviction process.
  • Daniel Brantes Ferreira.
    Daniel Brantes Ferreira
    1/18/22

    Daniel Brantes Ferreira is a professor at Universidade Cândido Mendes and Vice-President for Academic affairs at the Brazilian Center of Arbitration and Mediation (CBMA), where he is an arbitrator. Daniel is also President of the Brazilian Bar Association, Rio de Janeiro Section, Legislative Affairs Commission. Research topics: legal theory, legal history, legal education, comparative studies, and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Daniel is a partner at Bruno Freire Law Firm where he practices labor law and torts. At The Baldy Center he is researching American Legal Realism. In January 2021, Brantes Ferreira was interviewed by Brazil's major newspaper, Estadáo, about his perspective on Trump’s call to Raffensperger and it’s legal repercussions. That interview is here.  

    Brantes Ferreira is first author on the paper, Arbitration chambers and trust in technology provider: Impacts of trust in technology intermediated dispute resolution proceeding, published by the Journal Technology in Society (Scopus Q1), 2022.

  • Melissa Crouch
    7/13/23
    Melissa Crouch, a professor at the Faculty of Law & Justice, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, has been awarded a senior research fellowship at The Baldy Center for the academic year 2023-24. Melissa's research contributes to the interdisciplinary fields of law and society; comparative constitutional law, with a focus on Asia. In 2022, Crouch won the Podgorecki Prize for outstanding scholarship of an early career socio-legal scholar, awarded by the Research Committee on the Sociology of Law, the International Sociological Association. Crouch is the president of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (2023-2024), the peak academic body for the study of Asia in Australia.  
See all fellows

The Baldy Center Multimedia

  • Riana Pryor: Equitable Medical Care for High School Student Athletes
    4/13/23

    Sports participation comes with an inherent risk of athletic injuries, ranging from mild to severe across all sports. Of the over 7 million high school students participating in school-sanctioned sports, approximately 2 million sports injuries occur annually. Football, cheerleading, wrestling, gymnastics, girls basketball, and girls soccer place student athletes at the highest risk of severe injury. For example, cheerleading, a female-dominated sport, accounts for two thirds of all catastrophic injuries: skull fractures, neck injuries, and brain injuries. When directly comparing girls and boys sports teams, girls sustain a higher severe-injury rate than boys, and when a severe injury occurs, girls are more likely to require surgery than boys. Continue reading.



  • Kathy Jamil: Policy meets practice – Title IX and WNY Girls in Sports
    3/29/23

    “Sports impact your whole life. There are a lot of times you’re going to lose in life, and you need to be able to move forward from there," observes Mary Wilson, founder of WNY Girls in Sports. The program was established for the purpose of improving the lives of girls in Buffalo through physical activity and sports. Wilson envisioned a program that would empower girls and young women to be healthy, confident, and self-aware through their participation in sports and physical activity. Continue reading.


  • Episode 32: Shaun Marq Anderson speaks to the nature of Title IX
    4/3/23
    In Episode 32 of The Baldy Center Podcast, Shaun Anderson opines on both the public and scholarly perceptions of Title IX. Dr. Anderson observes that media and the court of public opinion have the power to challenge and improve the application of Title IX. 
  • Podcast: Farinacci-Fernós discusses Puerto Rico's Constitutional Paradox
    6/1/23
    In Episode 33 of The Baldy Center Podcast, Jorge M. Farinacci-Fernós speaks about his background, as well as his 2023 book, Puerto Rico’s Constitutional Paradox: Colonial Subordination, Democratic Tension, and Promise of Progressive Transformation.
  • Katerina Bezrukova: Title IX - Those 37 Words and What Comes Next
    2/28/23

    Title IX stands as a great example of the power of a few, well-chosen words. Those 37 words are mostly known for increasing access to women’s athletic programs, guaranteeing female participation in “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” The Women’s Sports Foundation reported that, since Title IX’s passage in 1972, female sport participants at NCAA schools increased from just under 30,000 to 219,000 in 2019. Over the same period, male participation grew from 170,000 to 279,000. Continue reading.

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THE BALDY CENTER CONFERENCES (since 2016)

  • Critical Encounters with Habermas' Legal Theory
    8/30/23
    May 26 and 27,  2023: The Baldy Center conference, Critical Encounters with Habermas' Legal Theory in Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy is dedicated to re-examining the principal work on legal theory by the eminent German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas.
  • While Waiting for Rain: Community, Law and Economy in a Time of Change
    8/30/23
    April 28, 2023: The Baldy Center presents a conference discussing the book by John Henry Schlegel, While Waiting for Rain: Community, Law and Economy in a Time of Change. The book is about the economic history of the United States as well as that of Buffalo, New York: an appropriate stand-in for any city that may have seen its economy start to fall apart in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. 
  • Interventions in Social Reproduction: Labor, Social Justice, and the Value of Human Life
    7/25/23
    2022-23 Conference Events: Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) is the theme of the year-long conference hosted by the UB Gender Institute as a series of lectures, panel table discussions, and reading groups. The events will highlight the most recent feminist contributions and SRT developments as core concerns of political economy and social policy.
  • Alison Des Forges Annual Symposium
    8/8/23
    April 26, 2023: The Baldy Center is pleased to co-sponsor the 2023 Alison Des Forges Annual Symposium, “The Russo-Ukrainian War: Achievements and Limitations of Today’s International System". This symposium will examine the Russo-Ukrainian war and what it tells us about the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary international system. It will explore war crimes, crimes against humanity and alleged genocide arising from the conflict. It will also revisit the enduring dichotomy between Russian authoritarian imperialism and Ukrainian democratic nationalism. 
  • The State of Democracy and Rise of Autocracy
    3/1/23
    OCTOBER 28 and 29, 2022, join us for the conference, The State of Democracy and Rise of Autocracy in view of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. The event includes presentations on democracy, authoritarianism, law, and illiberalism. Participants aim to illuminate environmental policies and political problems of weakening democratic sustainability with the simultaneous growth of autocracies worldwide. 
  • Visionaries and Troublemakers: Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at 50
    3/1/23
    OCTOBER 28 and 29, 2022, join us for the workshop, "Visionaries and Troublemakers: Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at 50".  The event has the dual aim of critically reflecting on fifty years of women's studies at UB and examining how the teaching and research conducted by faculty and students has been part of broader struggles to promote the rights of women and sexual minorities.
  • Exploring The Law and Political Economy Difference
    6/5/22
    LPE Workshop, June 9 & 10, 2022:  Exploring The Law and Political Economy Difference. The multiple crises of the 21st century — covid, climate, financial instability, inequality, and rising authoritarianism – have spurred a new intellectual movement, Law and Political Economy (LPE).
  • Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia
    7/19/22
    April 29 and 30:  The University at Buffalo is proud to present the 2022 Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia by reflecting upon the rich history of South Asia and its connection to present-day conditions.
  • Looking Back, Moving Forward: Law, Policy and Environmental Justice
    7/19/22
    April 22 and 23, 2022: Join us online for the conference, Looking Back, Moving Forward: Law, Policy and Environmental Justice. The two-day virtual event critically examines the past, present, and potential future roles of the law and legal strategies to advance environmental justice (EJ) policy and action.
  • Workshop on Marx, Law, and the Administrative State
    5/18/21
    June 25, 2021, Marx, Law, and the Administrative State, workshop organized by Matthew Dimick.  The online event is sponsored, in part, by: The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy; the University at Buffalo School of Law; and Legal Form.
  • Medical Posthumanities: Governing Health Beyond the Human
    4/11/23
    April 14, 15 & 16, 2021: While medical humanities have tended to focus almost exclusively on humans, a medical posthumanities, by contrast, would take seriously the role of "more-than-human" actors to explore the complex entanglements of human, animal, and ecological health.
  • Serious Fun: A conference with & around Schlegel!
    7/6/21
    The Del Cotto Professorship, The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, and the Buffalo Law Review are pleased to announce publication of the symposium issue Serious Fun: A conference with & around Schlegel!  Essays focus on legal and economic history, legal scholarship, and teaching. Serious Fun is being planned. The 2021 symposium issue is here.
  • Legacies of Suffrage: Women's Activism, Then and Now
    2/26/22
    Friday, March 6, 2020:  The symposium, Legacies of Suffrage: Women's Activism Then and Now, marks the ratification centennial of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Organized by Carrie Bramen, the symposium brings together scholars to explore the lessons of hard-won voting rights, the need for civic engagement, and, the role of trailblazers in the suffrage movement.
  • The Second International Conference on Buddhism and Law
    4/25/23
    September 26 to 28, 2019: The Second International Conference on Buddhism and Law. Hosted by the journal Buddhism, Law & Society, this conference focuses on the many legal features of Buddhism, and how law and the state relate to Buddhist actors, institutions and texts. The conference will cover themes, such as: Buddhism and politics; current issues in implementing Buddhist religious values into legal systems; Buddhist law and constitutionalism in emerging democracies; legal aspects of different versions of the Vinaya in Sanskrit, Pali and other vernacular sources; Buddhism and social policy; the relationship of Buddhism to religious education, criminal law, and property law; colonialism and its relationship to Buddhist law; and Buddhist legal processes, among many others. The conference is free and open to the public. We invite all persons interested in the topic to attend.
  • Journal of Law and Political Economy: Developing the Field
    6/23/21
    The Baldy Center Workshop, October 11 & 12, 2019, marks the launch of  The Journal of Law and Political Economy  (JLPE).  The peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary online publication seeks to promote multi- and interdisciplinary analyses of the mutually constitutive interactions among law, society, institutions, and politics. Its central goal is to explore power in all its manifestations (race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, global inequality, etc.) and the relationship of law to power.
  • Environmental Justice in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank
    12/29/20
    Workshop: Environmental Justice in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. Fifty years into the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, it is important to understand the lesser known aspects of this apparatus. The focus of the workshop is on the administration of environmental injustice in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. Dates: February 7 and 8, 2019. 
  • From Protest to Politics: Women's Movements and Strengthening Democracies
    4/30/21
    Conference: “From Protest to Politics: Women’s Movements and Strengthening Democracies.” For the last sixty years, there has been a consistent pattern of the growth of democratic governments produced by engaged citizens working together in social movements. Often led by diverse women, these social movements won the expansion of civil rights, political participation, and new laws to ensure equality. However, we now face a global rise in authoritarian politics and a rising concern over the future of liberal democracies. Our conference brings together scholars to analyze the current moment. Dates: April 11 & 12, 2019.
  • Tempering Power
    6/22/20
    On November 10, 2018, we hosted "Tempering Power", The Baldy Center's 40th Anniversary Conference held in conjunction with the Mitchell Lecture. On November 9, the Mitchell Lecture was delivered by John Braithwaite, the prolific and highly distinguished professor at Australian National University. His working title is “Tempered Power, Variegated Capitalism, Law and Society”.  The talk was complemented by the Baldy Center's day-long conference.
  • Addiction as a chronic illness? Promises and perils of a new drug policy paradigm
    4/30/21
    On September 21 and 22, 2018, we hosted the symposium, Addiction as a chronic illness? Promises and perils of a new drug policy paradigm. Activists and physicians have worked hard to end punitive responses to addiction and recast it as a chronic illness treatable, in part, with medications like buprenorphine. But the “chronic illness” paradigm raises new questions: How to avoid the stigma and social limitations associated with chronic illness? How to prevent pharmaceutical industry influence over medication assisted treatment (MAT)? This symposium brings together leading scholars of addiction, pharmaceuticals, and chronic illness to explore the promises and perils of applying this paradigm to drug dependence and addiction.
  • Universities, Innovation, and Development
    5/14/19
    This invited workshop will focus on the internal and external facilitators and barriers of the transactional, developmental, and hybrid roles of the research university, in an effort to address the absence of systematic quantifiable measures of university-based research that address broader developmental aspects. Participants in this workshop will share their current work on this topic as well as plan for future collaboration.
    Dates: April 7 and 8, 2018
  • Disability and Higher Education
    12/29/20
    For most people familiar with the process of seeking accommodations through institutional channels, we know that there is often a disconnect between following the letter of the law and maximizing the learning experience for everyone involved. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 requires us to provide reasonable accommodations for students and workers with disabilities. When is it not enough? What can universities do better? This discussion will bring together scholars, students, and advocates to discuss the particulars of succeeding as a student, teacher, and researcher while disabled. Date: April 11, 2018
  • Global Glyphosate: New Challenges in Regulating Pervasive Chemicals in the Anthropocene
    4/11/23
    November 11 & 12, 2021: Global Glyphosate: New Challenges in Regulating Pervasive Chemicals in the Anthropocene. 
  • Buffaronto Sociolegal Conversations
    12/29/20
    Join us on Saturday, September 23, 2017, for Buffaronto Sociolegal Conversations. The event will bring together scholars from Buffalo and Toronto for informal, wide-ranging discussion of pressing issues in sociolegal research. We invite you to participate in this conversation, which we hope will be the first of an ongoing series.
  • Trump and the Law Speaker Series
    7/7/21
    Fall 2017: The Trump and the Law speaker series seeks to create a space for discussion, inquiry, and action as we enter new and ever more turbulent legal and political waters. To that end, we are hosting a series of speakers who will engage in public discussions of the policies and politics of the current administration. The talks are organized around particular policy or legal issues and bring to campus distinguished scholars, lawyers, and others engaged with the issues of the day. 
  • The Changing Climate: Reflections on Current Law, Policy, Justice, and Regulation
    12/29/20
    Join us, March 10 and 11, 2017, for a conference that explores the legal challenges for climate change advocacy, alternative policy approaches, and the stumbling blocks for existing and proposed legal theories.
  • Ocean Legalities: The Law and Life of the Sea
    12/17/20
    February 23 and 24, 2017, join us for a two-day workshop that examines the limits of legal frameworks rooted in humanistic and terrestrial assumptions. The event brings together legal scholars, geographers, anthropologists, sociologists, environmental scholars, and historians to expose the biopolitical hierarchies naturalized through modes of classification and operation by exploring a new subject of inquiry: ocean legalities.
  • Global Governance and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
    4/30/21
    Join us on Saturday, November 5, 2016, for Global Governance and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Symposium. The goal of this one-day symposium is to critically evaluate the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Billed as a “21st century trade agreement,” this far-reaching accord seeks to harmonize and, in some instances, to deepen the transnational governance of labor, the environment, and intellectual property, among other areas.
  • Gene Editing: Life and Law Beyond the Human
    12/29/20
    October 21 and 22, 2016, join us for a groundbreaking workshop that will bring together scholars from a diverse range of disciplines to contemplate the cultural, scientific, regulatory, and normative implications of gene editing technologies for the future of life.
  • Buddhist Law and State Law in Comparative Perspective
    12/29/20
    Sept 30 and Oct 1, 2016: The two-day conference, builds on the edited collection, Buddhism and Law: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2014) by Rebecca French and Mark Nathan. It will also serve as the official launch of the first issue of the new peer-reviewed, academic journal, Buddhism, Law & Society  (William S. Hein Publishing).
  • Redistribution: Politics, Law, and Policy
    3/1/23
    Spring 2016 workshop: Redistribution: Politics, Law, and Policy. The theme of this gathering is the redistribution of income, with particular focus on questions that concern preferences, taxation, and state capacity.
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