School Notes: Yale Law School
January/February 2012

New faculty at YLS

Amy Kapczynski ’03JD has joined the Yale Law School faculty as an associate professor of law, and Tom Tyler as a professor of law. Professor Kapczynski previously taught at the University of California at Berkeley Law School. Her research interests center on international law, intellectual property, and global health. Tom Tyler comes to Yale from New York University, where he taught in both the psychology department and the law school. His research and teaching have focused on social psychology and the psychology of procedural justice.

New program will promote free speech

A new initiative at the Law School, administered by the Yale Information Society Project, is dedicated to promoting freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and access to information as informed by the values of democracy and human freedom. The Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression is made possible by a generous gift from Floyd Abrams ’59LLB, one of the country’s leading experts in freedom of speech and press issues. The institute will include a clinic for Yale Law students to engage in litigation, draft model legislation, and give advice to lawmakers and policy makers on issues of media freedom and informational access; it will promote scholarship and law reform on emerging questions concerning both traditional and new media, and it will hold scholarly conferences and events at Yale on First Amendment and other related issues.

Navajo Supreme Court comes to Yale

The Supreme Court of the Navajo Nation came to Yale Law School on November 14 to hear oral arguments in the appeal of the case, Navajo Nation v. RJN Construction Management, Inc., Robert J. Nelson and The Home for Women and Children. Chief Justice Herbert Yazzie, Justice Eleanor Shirley, and Justice Wilson Yellowhair presided. The case focused on one of the most nuanced and contentious issues American Indian governments face: the ownership of Indian land held in trust by the federal government. It also addressed the complex interplay between the community’s use of reservation land and business interests. It was the Navajo Nation Supreme Court’s first visit to Yale Law School.