Professor Holning Lau has a number of speaking events scheduled for the month of April. On April 3, he spoke at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities. His presentation addressed gender equality and its implications for deliberative democracy. On April 4, Prof. Lau participated in “CRT20: Honoring Our Past, Charting Our Future,” a conference celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Critical Race Theory. At CRT20, Prof. Lau served as co-leader of a roundtable discussion on race and sexuality. He also served as a commentator on “Straight Scrutiny,” a paper by Prof. Catherine Smith of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. Finally, Prof. Lau is scheduled to speak at Villanova Law School on Friday, April 17. Villanova's OUTLaw student group will be participating in a nationwide Day of Silence on April 17 to raise awareness on anti-LGBT behaviors in schools. The student group will break the silence with a special event featuring Prof. Lau as a guest speaker.

Associate Professor of Law Holning Lau will be presenting his research on Asia at two forums.

His research on Asia has been published in the Northwestern Law Review and in the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender.

On March 14, Professor Lau will be speaking at Global Arc of Justice: Sexual Orientation Law Around the World, a conference co-convened by the International Lesbian and Gay Law Association and UCLA’s Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law & Public Policy. On March 27, Professor Lau will be speaking on a plenary panel titled “Asian Comparative Law” at the Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Professors (CAPALF).

Professor Holning Lau will be presenting his paper “Tailoring Equal Protection to Address Today’s Democratic Deficit” at two scholarly forums in February. On February 11, Professor Lau will give his presentation as part of Cardozo Law School’s Baum Lecture Series. On February 18, Professor Law will present his paper at UCLA School of Law’s Critical Race Studies Colloquium.

For a copy of Professor Lau’s draft, please email holning.lau@hofstra.edu.

On December 2, Professor Holning Lau co-taught a CLE course offered by UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law & Public Policy.

The CLE event was held at the art studio of Hunt Slonem in New York City. Professor Lau commented on recent developments concerning same-sex marriage in California and Connecticut. Professor Lau was joined by three instructors: Professor Edward Stein from Cardozo Law School, Professor M.V. Lee Badgett from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Mr. Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry.

On December 1, Professor Holning Lau presented a paper titled “Tailoring Equal Protection to Address Today’s Democratic Deficit” at the University of Virginia School of Law. The presentation was part of the school’s faculty workshop series and was sponsored by the school’s Program in Law & Humanities.

In the paper, Professor Lau argues that “identity scripting” harms deliberative democracy and that equal protection jurisprudence should ameliorate that harm. To advance his arguments, Professor Lau draws examples from the 2008 election year. Political candidates such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin negotiated scripts on gender and racial identity during their campaigns. Other participants in political deliberation, such as commentators in the press, also negotiated gender and racial scripts during their election coverage. In his paper, Professor Lau analyzes how these gender and racial scripts undermine democratic deliberation. He also discusses how equal protection jurisprudence should address this harm to democracy.
A draft of Professor Lau’s paper is available upon request. Please email holning.lau@hofstra.edu.