UCLA Scholar to Speak at USD School of Law Lavender Lecture
Adam P. Romero is senior counsel and Arnold D. Kassoy scholar of law at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2002, he graduated from Cornell University and in 2007, he received his law degree from Yale Law School.
He successfully represented the plaintiffs in Cooper-Harris v. USA, the first case nationally to declare unconstitutional laws barring the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages in the veterans-benefits context. He is also co-editor of Feminist and Queer Legal Theory: Intimate Encounters, Uncomfortable Conversations (2009).
Also speaking at the Lavender Lecture will be Karen Mackey, who has served as the executive director of the Sioux City Human Rights Commission since 2004. In 2008, she was named a woman of excellence by Women Aware. Mackey is a co-founder of Siouxland Pride Alliance in Siouxland. She serves on the Iowa Department of Human Rights Board and as commission chair of the Iowa Commission on Native American Affairs.
The Lavender Lecture was inaugurated by the OUTLaws student group in 2013 as a venue to bring discussion and education to South Dakota on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues and the law. This year’s lecture is cosponsored by the OUTLaws and Women in Law student groups. The lecture begins at 3 p.m. in the USD School of Law Courtroom.