“The Problem of Ordinary Injustice: Reporting on Ongoing Systemic Problems”

Amy Bach, a graduate of Stanford Law School and member of the New York State Bar, was a Knight Foundation Journalism Fellow at Yale Law School. She has written on law as a freelance journalist for The Nation, The American Lawyer and New York Magazine, among other publications. For her recently published book, “Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court” (MacMillan, 2009), Bach received a Soros Media Fellowship, a J. Anthony Lukas citation and a Radcliffe Fellowship. She lives in Rochester, where she teaches a course in American politics called “Courts, Community and Injustice” at the University of Rochester. The Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics and the Media (IJPM) at Syracuse University has announced its Spring 2010 lecture series on “Law, Politics and the Media.”Today’s American judicial system operates in a complex environment of legal principle, political pressure and media coverage. The series provides an introduction to the court system and its environment as a single, integrated subject of study and features speakers from a variety of legal, political and media backgrounds, including practicing lawyers, published authors, leading scholars and court researchers. “Law, Politics and the Media” lectures are free and open to the public. They take place from 3:50–5:10 p.m. in Room 204 of the Syracuse University College of Law. Paid parking is available in SU pay lots.The lecture series is part of an interdisciplinary course on law, politics and the media cross-listed between the College of Law, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. The course is taught by SU professors Keith Bybee (IJPM director) and Roy Gutterman (IJPM associate director), and funded through support from the John Ben Snow Foundation and the Carnegie Corp. of New York.