Professors to debate 'Presidential Powers in a Time of War' at School of Law tomorrow
A debate on “Presidential Powers in a Time of War” will be held at the University of St. Thomas School of Law tomorrow, Nov. 16.
Debating the topic will be John Yoo, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, and Michael Paulsen, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School.
Yoo is former deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice. Paulsen, a visiting faculty member at the St. Thomas School of Law in 2003 and 2004, is a former attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice.
The debate is being hosted by the Federalist Society at the St. Thomas School of Law. The program, which will include lunch, will be held from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. in the School of Law atrium.
Members of the St. Thomas community are welcome to attend the program, but reservations are required. To make a reservation send an e-mail to Lee McGrath at lmcgrath@ij.org. The cost of the lunch and program is $20 for members of the Federalist Society and $25 for nonmembers.
Yoo has been in the news for his work on a 2002 memo, drafted while he was at the Department of Justice, that dealt with the treatment of prisoners of war. The memo advised President George Bush that international laws did not apply to the United States in its treatment of detainees in the war on terrorism. Yoo also is speaking at the University of Minnesota Law School tomorrow evening.
Several talks related to torture and prisoners of war, as well as a prayer vigil, are being held at the St. Thomas School of Law this week. Those events, which are being sponsored by the Amnesty International student chapter at the School of Law, were listed in a Bulletin Today story that appeared Monday at https://news.stthomas.edu/news/200547/Monday/Law11_14_05.cfm/.
