mslaw's Podcast

Town Meeting on Immigration, part 1 of 2

MSL Educational Forum co-hosts Diane Sullivan and Michael Coyne discuss with both a panel of experts and audience participation issues surrounding immigration into the US.  Are today's immigrants somehow different from those of the past?  Should there be limits on immigration?  Should English be considered a legally necessary skill for immigrants?  When the immigration debate is swirling through Congress today, these two parts attempt to examine the issues involved.

The Massachusetts School of Law, located in Andover, Massachusetts, makes high quality, affordable legal education available to less privileged persons who are traditionally excluded from the legal profession. As part of its mission of providing high quality education and information for both law students and the general public, the Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public via television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit www.mslaw.edu. MSLAW podcasts are available from http://mslaw.libsyn.com/rss, for subscriptions, or http://mslaw.libsyn.com, for direct downloads. MSLAW videos are available from Google Video.

History Without Borders:  Settler Societies

Recently, the Massachusetts School of Law hosted a two day forum of various speakers concentrating on discussing American history in the context of the world at large, with an emphasis not on nationalism, but on relationships.  This installment, Settler Societies, presented by Dr. Carl Guarneri, discusses how the various societies like America evolved in the larger context of the world.  A "settler society" as he defines it is one where colonization occurrs in a place already inhabited.  The Western hemisphere is replete with various settler societies.   Dr. Guarneri attempts to place our society in a larger context of other developing societies.

The Massachusetts School of Law, located in Andover, Massachusetts, makes high quality, affordable legal education available to less privileged persons who are traditionally excluded from the legal profession. As part of its mission of providing high quality education and information for both law students and the general public, the Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public via television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books.  For more information visit www.mslaw.edu.  MSLAW podcasts are available from http://mslaw.libsyn.com/rss.  MSLAW videos are available from Google Video.

Guantanamo Bay

Foreign nationals are still being held at the prison called Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  This edition of MSL Presents--A Question of law, with host Constance Rudneck examins this issue in the light of history and law.  Are there precedents for such incarciration?  How does this imprisonment affect national security and the war on terror?

The Massachusetts School of Law, located in Andover, Massachusetts, makes high quality, affordable legal education available to less privileged persons who are traditionally excluded from the legal profession. As part of its mission of providing high quality education and information for both law students and the general public, the Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public via television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit www.mslaw.edu. MSLAW podcasts are available from http://mslaw.libsyn.com/rss, for subscriptions, or http://mslaw.libsyn.com, for direct downloads. MSLAW videos are available from Google Video.

Spying on Americans

For nearly 30 years, laws have been in place to protect Americans from having their communications monitored.  In the past two weeks, this heretofore illegal practice has become partially legalized.  What is the history of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the closed door courts assigned to administer and oversee the monitoring of Americans?  MSL Educational Forum host Constance Rudneck and several experts discuss the issues surrounding these questions and the fallout from the revelation in late 2005 that the law had been routinely broken since 9/11.

The Massachusetts School of Law, located in Andover, Massachusetts, makes high quality, affordable legal education available to less privileged persons who are traditionally excluded from the legal profession. As part of its mission of providing high quality education and information for both law students and the general public, the Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public via television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit www.mslaw.edu. MSLAW podcasts are available from http://mslaw.libsyn.com/rss, for subscriptions, or http://mslaw.libsyn.com, for direct downloads. MSLAW videos are available from Google Video.

Band of Sisters

MSL Educational Forum host, Diane Sullivan and author Kirstan Holmstead discuss, with women who have seen combat in Iraq, issues surrounding women in combat roles.  Some nations do not discriminate between genders in combat roles, but traditionally, the American military kept women out of combat.  This has changed with the Iraq conflict.  The panel examines the changing roles of women in the military and how this impacts them, their families and those they serve with.

The Massachusetts School of Law, located in Andover, Massachusetts, makes high quality, affordable legal education available to less privileged persons who are traditionally excluded from the legal profession. As part of its mission of providing high quality education and information for both law students and the general public, the Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public via television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit www.mslaw.edu. MSLAW podcasts are available from http://mslaw.libsyn.com/rss, for subscriptions, or http://mslaw.libsyn.com, for direct downloads. MSLAW videos are available from Google Video.

Gay Marriage in America, 2 of 2

In this second of 2 parts of MSL Presents-A Question of Law, host Constance Rudneck and several experts examine the reactions of different political jurisdictions to the issues raised by the legalization of same gender marriage in Massachusetts after the Goodridge Supreme Judicial Court decision.  Some jurisdictions want to bar any same gender couple from partner's rights accorded to a heterosexual couple.  Others wish to merely deny legal marriage while allowing the possibility of civil unions.  How will these outcomes affect American society and civil rights?

The Massachusetts School of Law, located in Andover, Massachusetts, makes high quality, affordable legal education available to less privileged persons who are traditionally excluded from the legal profession. As part of its mission of providing high quality education and information for both law students and the general public, the Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public via television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit www.mslaw.edu. MSLAW podcasts are available from http://mslaw.libsyn.com/rss, for subscriptions, or http://mslaw.libsyn.com, for direct downloads. MSLAW videos are available from Google Video.

In a conference on Studying America in the World:  History Without Borders, held at the Massachusetts School of Law, Professor Frank Lambert of Purdue University discusses the true nature of American independence in the Atlantic World. In this world, the Barbary Pirate states seriously threatened American commerce. Free commerce, after all, was one of the battle cries of the American Revolution.

The Story begins in 1783 when American independence was in its infancy and the importance of international trade and global economy was realized. Americans set out upon Atlantic Ocean, envisioning fortunes to be earned - no longer under the auspices of British control - from free and unfettered commerce. Instead, they encountered the Barbary pirates. The Barbary pirates controlled the Mediterranean, and its approaches, with a rigid system of piracy, ransom, and tribute. This system was easily navigable for large, wealthy and established European nations, but for the infant United States, the Barbary pirates threatened to strangle the commerce of the nation in the cradle.

Thus, Lambert reintroduces a part of American history, often overshadowed by the monumental events of the Revolution and the War of 1812.

The Massachusetts School of Law, located in Andover, Massachusetts, makes high quality, affordable legal education available to less privileged persons who are traditionally excluded from the legal profession. As part of its mission of providing high quality education and information for both law students and the general public, the Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public via television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit www.mslaw.edu. MSLAW podcasts are available from http://mslaw.libsyn.com/rss, for subscriptions, or http://mslaw.libsyn.com, for direct downloads. MSLAW videos are available from Google Video.

Americans often believe that the nation and its history are self-contained developing largely independent of the rest of the world. Such a view has failed to recognize the interconnectedness between a nation's history and the history of other nations. In his keynote speech at the Massachusetts School of Law Studying America in the World: History Without Borders conference, Professor Thomas Bender of New York University addressed the current one-sided nature of American history that we read and learn about in our society.

The Massachusetts School of Law, located in Andover, Massachusetts, makes high quality, affordable legal education available to less privileged persons who are traditionally excluded from the legal profession. As part of its mission of providing high quality education and information for both law students and the general public, the Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public via television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit www.mslaw.edu. MSLAW podcasts are available from http://mslaw.libsyn.com/rss, for subscriptions, or http://mslaw.libsyn.com, for direct downloads. MSLAW videos are available from Google Video.

Gay Marriage in Massachusetts, 1 of 2

The fallout from the 2003 Goodridge decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court still reverberates throughout the nation.  MSL Presents-A Question of Law host Constance Rudneck discusses with panelists the nature and far reaching potential effects of this decision.

The Massachusetts School of Law, located in Andover, Massachusetts, makes high quality, affordable legal education available to less privileged persons who are traditionally excluded from the legal profession. As part of its mission of providing high quality education and information for both law students and the general public, the Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public via television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit www.mslaw.edu. MSLAW podcasts are available from http://mslaw.libsyn.com/rss, for subscriptions, or http://mslaw.libsyn.com, for direct downloads. MSLAW videos are available from Google Video.