Legal scholar to deliver lecture on election law

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas School of Law welcomes election law scholar Franita Tolson for a virtual lecture event this fall. Tolson will present "The Inevitability of American Democracy" at 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, via Zoom.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Advance registration is required. Virtual event login information will be shared with registrants before the event.

Tolson is the vice dean for faculty and academic affairs and professor of law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. Tolson teaches constitutional law and election law.

“The talk will situate modern voter suppression efforts in historical context and suggest a path forward that will allow America to better live up to its democratic ideals,” Tolson said.

Tolson’s research on election law, constitutional law, legal history and employment discrimination has appeared in leading law reviews including the Yale Law Journal, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review and Boston University Law Review. Her forthcoming book, "In Congress We Trust?: Enforcing Voting Rights from the Founding to the Jim Crow Era," will be published in 2021 by Cambridge University Press. 

“Professor Tolson is a nationally recognized election law scholar, and we are so pleased that she is able to join KU Law to share her knowledge and expertise with the law school community,” said Uma Outka, associate dean for faculty and William R. Scott Law Professor at KU Law. “Although we would have loved to be able to host her in person at Green Hall, the virtual setting has allowed us to open her lecture more broadly to alumni and legal scholars elsewhere that would not otherwise be able to join us.”

Tolson has also written for or appeared as a commentator for various mass media outlets, including The New York Times, Reuters and Bloomberg Law. Tolson is also an election law analyst for CNN during the 2020 election cycle.