Zalkind Duncan & Bernstein LLP is happy to announce that Jenna Agatep recently joined the firm as an associate. For more firm news and information on our firm’s work, please follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
Attorney Naomi R. Shatz, working with the Mississippi Center for Justice, has settled Professor Garrett Felber’s First Amendment claims against his former employer, the University of Mississippi. Dr. Felber was on the tenure track in the History Department at the University, where he studied twentieth-century African American social movements, Black Radicalism, and the carceral state. As was widely reported in the press, in December 2020 the University terminated Dr. Felber’s contract after he tweeted his opinion that the University had failed to appropriately address instances of racism at the school. Attorney Shatz had this to say about Dr. Felber’s termination: “We are concerned by recent instances of universities across the country ignoring and violating their faculty members’ rights to free speech and academic freedom. Professors like Dr. Felber have a Constitutional right to speak out about injustices they see in their institutions. The University’s decision has deprived it not only of an excellent professor, but of a valued member of its community.” Read the full press release here.
On June 11, 2021, Naomi Shatz submitted testimony to the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights about the Title IX regulations that went into effect last summer. Naomi discussed her experience handling cases under the new regulations, and identified areas where the regulations can be improved. You can read the full testimony here.
Attorney Monica Shah will speak at the Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education’s 2021 Employment Law Conference regarding updates to Supreme Court and federal case law. Click here to learn more about the conference.
Inga Bernstein has filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court seeking review of the career offender provision of the United States Sentencing Guideline in a case which, if decided in her client’s favor, would have wide-sweeping ramifications for the thousands of people sentenced as career offenders each year and for the deference due to the Sentencing Commission’s Guideline commentary more generally.
Inga Bernstein and Naomi Shatz successfully represented a student in a Title IX proceeding, in which the student was found not responsible for any violations of law or policy.
Inga Bernstein won the compassionate release of a client who faced three more years in jail, based on the COVID-19 conditions at the federal prison at which he was housed and the meritorious appellate claims Inga is pursuing on his behalf.
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