AWARDS & NOTES The USC Academic Senate presented PROFESSOR JODY ARMOUR with the 2021 Walter Wolf Award for Defense of Academic Freedom and Faculty Rights. Armour is the sixth recipient to ever receive the honor. The award is given to a USC faculty member for their defense and advocacy of academic freedom or other manifestations of social conscience, through distinguished faculty service, teaching, scholarship or activity as a public intellectual. Teaching Gender Identity Law, a panel moderated by PROFESSOR DAVID CRUZ, was among the more than 60 workshops offered this year at the Lavender Law conference and career fair in July in Los Angeles. Cruz proposed the panel to Lavender Law organizers in hopes of encouraging more law schools to meet student demand for more systematic teaching of transgender law. PROFESSOR THOMAS LYON, director of the USC Child Interviewing Lab, received a $250,000 grant from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to continue conducting forensic interviews for the Los Angeles County Dependency courts. PROFESSOR ELYN SAKS was awarded the 2021 Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health by the Brain and Behavior Foundation for her advocacy for mental health. The foundation recognized Saks’ pioneering contributions to the understanding of mental illness through her work as a legal advocate, volunteer, therapist, educator and author.
ARIELA GROSS SELECTED AS HARVARD RADCLIFFE INSTITUTE FELLOW Gross will work on new book about slavery during her fellowship year By Yulia Nakagome
Professor Ariela Gross was selected as a Joy Foundation Fellow by the Harvard Radcliffe Institute for the 2021-22 Academic year. Gross’ project will take the form of a book, tentatively titled The Time of Slavery: History, Memory, Politics and The Constitution. The book will explore the way the history and memory of slavery are echoed in modern law, culture and politics in debates about reparations, affirmative action and other forms of redress. “There is no more pressing issue right now than how to reckon with the legacies of slavery in the United States,” Gross said. “Slavery is the touchstone for every discussion about Blackness, and the stories we tell about slavery justify policies and politics in the present.” Gross was selected from more than 1,300 applicants to join a cohort of more than 50 fellows that includes faculty from Harvard University, University of Texas, Rutgers University, University of Houston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as authors, journalists, artists and scientists.
“I’m thrilled to be joining such an amazing group of scholars from such a wide range of fields for a year of reading, writing, and talking about the most important issues that face all of us today,” she said. Radcliffe Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin acknowledged the societal challenges the fellows will tackle in their work. “Some of these challenges are new, others are merely new to the spotlight — deep and longstanding issues that have been exacerbated by the pandemic and its far-reaching consequences,” Brown-Nagin said on the Radcliffe website. “Our newest class of fellows will reckon with this moment and its meaning, and they will push the limits of knowledge and practice across the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities.”
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