• Can Conservatives Defend America’s Multi-Billion-Dollar Immigration Enforcement System? A Conversation with Cato Institute's Director of Immigration Studies David Bier
    Jun 19 2026

    As part of an ongoing series examining the increasingly costly and draconian immigration enforcement system from a range of angles (including family and religious conscience), David Lopez sits down with David Bier, Director of Immigration Studies and the Selz Foundation Chair in Immigration Policy at the Libertarian Cato Institute, to discuss our broken and immigration system. Our guest explains how the current system centered on criminalization and deportation has cost taxpayers billions, stripped millions of migrants of legal status, betrays traditional conservative principles of free markets, fiscal responsibility, and small government, and why he compared the plans for escalating mass deportations to "ethnic cleansing."

    This podcast is for educational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not reflect the views of Arizona State University or the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Nothing discussed should be considered legal advice or a substitute for professional counsel. All errors are the responsibility of the speaker.

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    47 mins
  • Did the Supreme Court just complete the gutting of the iconic Voting Rights Act of 1965? A conversation with Todd Cox, Associate Director and Counsel of LDF
    Jun 11 2026

    The Supreme Court's recent decision in Callais v. Louisiana has raised questions as to whether this was the latest of several decisions eviscerating the landmark and transformative Voting Rights Act of 1965, often called the "crown jewel" of the civil rights era. We are joined by Todd Cox, Associate Director and Counsel of LDF and long-time civil rights attorney, to explain why the Supreme Court's most recent voting rights decision threatens equitable representation of Black and other voters of color, and how the recent pilgrimage of thousands to Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, ground zero for the historic civil rights struggle, to protest the decision promises to revitalize and re-engage citizens to vote and speak up.

    This podcast is for educational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not reflect the views of Arizona State University or the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Nothing discussed should be considered legal advice or a substitute for professional counsel. All errors are the responsibility of the speaker.

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    53 mins
  • The EEOC at a Crossroads: Former Officials on Preserving Equal Opportunity
    Jun 2 2026

    Throughout its history, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a product of the iconic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and transformative civil right movement has been at the cutting edge in removing discriminatory barriers in the workplace including pressing disparate impact discrimination to address systemic hiring barriers (often confronted by Black and female workers), to the development of hostile workplace and sexual harassment law, the expanded understanding of religious accommodation in the workplace, and the protection of the LGBTQ workers from discrimination. Former EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum and former EEOC General Counsel Karla Gilbride join ASU professor David Lopez (also a former EEOC General Counsel) to discuss how several former agency officials organized to speak up against the agency's seeming retreat from its mission. This includes the agency's dismissal of gender identity claims allowed by the Supreme Court, to its refusal to use statutorily-codified disparate impact, its repeal of critical workplace guidance and self-auditing tools, and, most fundamentally, its apparent abandonment of the agency's deep tradition of deliberative, inclusive, bipartisan development of policy to protect workers.

    This podcast is for educational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not reflect the views of Arizona State University or the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Nothing discussed should be considered legal advice or a substitute for professional counsel. All errors are the responsibility of the speaker.

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    1 hr
  • Free the Hair! Hour the Courts Have Allowed Hair and Grooming Codes as a Proxy for Race and Other Forms of Discrimination and the Movement to Reimagine Anti-Discrimination Law to Address Discriminatory Grooming Codes
    Apr 24 2026

    Wendy Greene, the trailblazing Law Professor and Drexel Director of the Center for Law, Policy and Social Action (CLPSA), breaks down how grooming codes and court created distinctions between culture and "immutable: race have intersected to exclude workers with locs, braids, and other natural and protective African-descendent hairstyles, and the grassroots movement to expand our understanding of how race discrimination and create greater workplace fairness and opportunity.

    This podcast is for educational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not reflect the views of Arizona State University or the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Nothing discussed should be considered legal advice or a substitute for professional counsel. All errors are the responsibility of the speaker.

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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Why the Supreme Court's Consideration of Birthright Citizenship and Asylum Matters in the Everyday Lives of Our Communities and For How We See Ourselves as a Nation
    Apr 22 2026

    ASU Law Vice Dean and Charles J. Merriam Distinguished Professor of Law, and immigration law expert, Angela Banks and Rutgers Professor, Chancellor's Social Justice Scholar, and Founder of the Rutgers Center for Immigrant Justice Rose Cuison-Villazor join David Lopez to break down the Supreme Court's recent arguments on the birthright citizenship executive order, asylum and temporary protective status. These cases may seem complex but our experts explain the human consequences for these decisions and why merely taking these cases matters for impacted communities regardless of the ultimate outcome.

    This podcast is for educational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not reflect the views of Arizona State University or the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Nothing discussed should be considered legal advice or a substitute for professional counsel. All errors are the responsibility of the speaker.

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    49 mins
  • Special Episode: Centering the Victims and Navigating Community Anger and Grief in Reaction to the New York Times’ Revelations Regarding Cesar Chavez
    Apr 7 2026

    Prof. Lopez interviews Daniel Rodriguez, ASU Law alum and one of the leaders of the immigrants right youth movement and Abdi Lopez, CRMWLI Fellow who grew up in a farmworker family, candidly reflect on the range of emotions unleashed by the NY Times revelations, after five years of investigation, of child abuse and sexism during his time as President of the United Farmworker Movement, centering the victims but examining questions of complicity, the yearning for an individual leader even in collective struggles, broader patterns of abusive power by powerful men, and how this moment can strengthen the movement to give voice and power to farmworkers and others working in low-wage jobs.

    This podcast is for educational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not reflect the views of Arizona State University or the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Nothing discussed should be considered legal advice or a substitute for professional counsel. All errors are the responsibility of the speaker.

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    48 mins
  • Part II: Religious Conscience and Immigration Enforcement: Geographer Describes How His Humanitarian Work with “No More Deaths” Leaving Water for Migrants in the Sonoran Desert Led to Federal Felony Charges, a Two-Year Ordeal and Ultimate Acquittal
    Apr 2 2026

    Prof. Lopez continues the special series interviewing geographer Scott Warren, a resident of Ajo in the middle of the Sonoran desert and a migration route sometimes called the Devil's Highway due to the large number of migrant deaths discusses how the federal government has leveraged this beautiful but hostile landscape he loves so much through is prevention through deterrence policy, ultimately leading to federal harboring and smuggling charges for his humanitarian work, a two-year ordeal including the assertion of religious conscience defenses under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and finally his ultimate acquittal.

    This podcast is for educational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not reflect the views of Arizona State University or the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Nothing discussed should be considered legal advice or a substitute for professional counsel. All errors are the responsibility of the speaker.

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    51 mins
  • Part I: Religious Conscience and Immigration Enforcement: Elizabeth Reiner Platt, Director of the Union Theological Seminary’s Law on Rights, and Religion Project Examining the Growing Conflict Between Religious Conscience and Immigration Enforcement
    Apr 2 2026

    Prof. David Lopez and Elizabeth Reiner Platt start their discussion with Reverend Marilynn Budde's call for mercy at the inaugural prayer service, a large section of the inter-denominational faith community has become increasingly vocal about what they view as a harsh and punitive immigration system. Elizabethe Reiner Platt, Director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project, discusses the organization's recent report analyzing the legal landscape safeguarding religious conscience and observation in the face of state action.

    This podcast is for educational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not reflect the views of Arizona State University or the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Nothing discussed should be considered legal advice or a substitute for professional counsel. All errors are the responsibility of the speaker.

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    43 mins