OUR EXCEPTIONAL FACULTY At RWU Law, students benefit from professors with national reputations for excellent scholarship, as well as adjuncts at the top of their fields. Here’s the latest on a few of our full-time faculty members.
GOLDSTEIN EXPLORES NATIONALIST ‘CONSTITUTIONAL DEVOTION’ This year, Professor Jared Goldstein completed a book, Real Americans: National Identity, Violence, and the Constitution, published in December 2021 by the University Press of Kansas. In the book, Goldstein lays out “the well-established pattern of movements devoted to defending the power of dominant racial, ethnic, and religious groups that deploy the rhetoric of constitutional devotion to express their national visions and justify their violence.” “My book is about the role of the Constitution in American nationalism,” Goldstein explained. “That is, the way that devotion to the Constitution is often seen as the embodiment of what it means to be American.” One review noted, “Goldstein’s seminal study is essential reading for anyone hoping to understand some of the most disturbing currents of contemporary American politics.” Goldstein also made headlines in 2020 representing ICE detainees at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls R.I., together with RWU Law’s Professor Deborah Gonzalez and the Rhode Island ACLU. On campus, he was deeply involved in the law school’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ABA reaccreditation site visit, and helping RWU Law carry out its Strategic Planning for Diversity & Inclusion.
MONESTIER TAKES ON AMAZON “Did you know that if the goods you purchase on Amazon turn out to be defective and cause serious personal injury, Amazon is probably not liable for them?” Professor Tanya Monestier asks in one of her latest articles, forthcoming in Cornell Law Review. Amazon, she explains in the article, seeks to avoid liability for dangerous and defective third-party goods sold on its platform, claiming that it does not hold title to the goods in question. Pushing back, Monestier argues that “Amazon looks like a seller, acts like a seller, and convinces buyers it is a seller. Amazon probably is a seller and should be estopped from arguing otherwise.” Monestier is a productive scholar and popular faculty member—she has been Professor of the Year (2018), Distinguished Teaching Professor of Law (2018-2019), and Distinguished Research Professor of Law (2018-2020). Monestier also has a book in the works: Sh*t No One Tells You About Law School is scheduled to be published by Carolina Academic Press in 2022. Geared in large part to first-generation students, it takes a direct, no-nonsense approach to doing well in law school. 31
