Current Call for Abstracts
The Columbia Law Review is excited to announce that we will be hosting a Symposium on the Law of Protest in the fall of 2024. We are now accepting abstracts to author a piece for the Symposium. Abstracts will be accepted on a rolling basis, and we will begin piece selection on April 22, 2024. If your abstract is selected, the piece would be slated for publication in our June 2025 Book, subject to requirements set by the editors of the Columbia Law Review. Please send submissions, and any questions, to Symposium & Book Review Editor Shaunak Puri at symposium@columbialawreview.org.
Topic Description
Protests have long played a central role in American society and politics, dating back to the “Germantown Protest” of 1688 through the Civil Rights Era and beyond. They have become increasingly prevalent and wide scale in the past few years, including 2017 protests of President Trump’s “Muslim Ban”; 2020 protests following the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor; the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, which many claimed was a protest against perceived election fraud; and, since October 2023, mass protests asserting a wide variety of perspectives on Palestine and Israel. Though protests are an increasingly common aspect of life in the United States, they are governed loosely by murky and often ill-enforced laws and policies. This Symposium will shine a much needed light on the current state of protest law, bringing together scholars, practitioners, and activists to consider where the law should go next. It will include topics such as Protests and the Constitution, Policing and Prosecution of Protests, Protests on Campus, and Comparative Perspectives from Protests in Other Countries.
Submission Instructions
Abstracts should be 1–2 pages in length and must include more than just the general area of law which the author hopes to explore. That is, it should be clear what the author plans to write about. The more detail provided and the more clearly the piece’s structure and scholarly contribution are articulated, the greater likelihood the abstract will be selected by the editors of Columbia Law Review for the Symposium. Also, if the author has already written part of a piece or wants to submit more than just an abstract, they may do so. Abstracts should be submitted via email to symposium@columbialawreview.org, ideally by April 22, 2024. Authors should include a CV with the submission and are also welcome to include a cover letter if there is anything further they would like to share with the CLR editors.
In case it is helpful, the anticipated writing timeline for selected authors will be:
- First drafts due in the beginning of September
- Second drafts due in mid-October ahead of the Symposium event
- Final drafts due in January, incorporating edits from the in-person Symposium event
Prior Columbia Law Review Symposia
2023. A Symposium on “Property and Education.” Vol. 123, No. 5.
2021. The Other 98%: Racial, Gender, And Economic Injustice in State Civil Courts. Vol 122, No. 5.
2019. Common Law for the Age of AI. Vol. 119, No. 7.
2017. The Legacy of Constance Baker Motley: Education, Equality, and the Law in the United States Today. Vol. 117, No. 7.
