News 4 - College of Law

How will SCOTUS ruling on Colorado conversion therapy law impact similar legislation in Utah? Wilson weighs in.

In late March, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, overturning a Colorado law that bans conversion therapy for minors because it violates First Amendment protections on free speech. The ruling is expected to impact similar laws in many other states, but according to Robin Fretwell Wilson, Utah’s law may survive any legal challenges. She consulted with the state legislature on the language of its 2023 law banning conversion therapy and says that their approach differs, allowing neutral speech and banning harmful conversion practices.

“I think it’s remarkable that Utah has found a way through what has just been a slog with the rest of the country,” Wilson said. “We don’t have to be divided about these things that are so deeply personal to us, like our identity or how we choose to love. People, you know, can find a way to protect everybody in the same law.”

Read more at ksl.com, fox13now.com, and deseret.com.

College of Law congratulates 2026 Rickert Award recipients

2026 Rickert Award winners pose for a photo

The Rickert Awards are the most prestigious awards conferred upon students at the University of Illinois College of Law and recognize excellence in student achievement. The Rickert Awards Program was established in the fall of 1976 and was named in memory of Joseph W. Rickert, a distinguished lawyer who practiced law in southern Illinois for many years. The Rickert gift paved the way for the College of Law to recognize outstanding third-year law students for their achievements. Congratulations to all of our 2026 honorees!

Excellence in Academic Achievement

Reilly Alridge
Kayla Beckley
Kendall Crispin
Emily Digman
Cole Edwards
Tanner Haynes
Daniel Morris
Ghazi Saoud
Elizabeth Walker

Excellence in Advocacy

Caroline Azem
Akanksha Balekai
Kelly Christensen
Sophia Downes
Ellie Jones
Ben Lee
Tyler Lewis
Jessie Randazzo

Excellence in Legal Writing

Jessica Bury
Sophia Downes
Willow Forster
Sieun Lee
Abby Milhiser
Brock Reeder
Avontay Ruff
Julia Sun

Excellence in Service

Lindsey Aden
Mounica Akula
Shaza Hussein
W Lander
Nurie Langlois
Abby Milhiser
Jess Nalupta
Alexandria Wilson

Keenan invested as Albert J. Harno Professor of Law

Amy Santos, Pat Keenan and Jamelle Sharpe pose for a photo prior to Pat's investiture.

On March 13, 2026, Patrick Keenan was invested as the Albert J. Harno Professor of Law in a ceremony at the College of Law Building. In remarks shared at the ceremony, Dean Jamelle Sharpe quoted Professor Andy Leipold in designating Keenan as a pillar of the law school community: “Pat is a highly regarded voice in international human rights law; his careful, thoughtful scholarship has enhanced our international reputation, his teaching is terrific—just ask the students—and he has been a wonderful colleague, someone who is supportive and fair to all.”

Professor Keenan joined the University of Illinois College of Law faculty in 2001. He is an expert in human rights and international law, and he holds campus appointments not only at the College of Law but also at the Center for Global Studies, Center for African Studies, and the Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies. He has published articles and book chapters on a variety of issues, including the U.S. drone program, human trafficking and tourism, and international criminal law and conflict minerals, and he is the co-author of “The International Criminal Court in a Nutshell.” His work has appeared in leading law reviews, and he has been quoted in numerous prominent media outlets. Professor Keenan’s scholarship has also been cited in the United States Supreme Court and other federal courts. Prior to his time in academia, Professor Keenan defended indigent criminal defendants facing the death penalty in Georgia and Alabama at trial, on appeal, and in habeas proceedings as an attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights. His full bio is available on his faculty profile page.

Professor Keenan’s endowed position was made possible through the thoughtful planning and a generous estate donation of Albert E. Jenner, Jr. ’30 in honor of Dean Harno. Dean Albert J. Harno served as a Professor of Law at the University of Illinois from 1921-1957 and was the dean of the College from 1922-1957, overseeing the College’s move from Altgeld Hall to the current College of Law building in 1955. At the campus level, he served as University Provost from 1931-1944. Dean Harno was also one of the leading scholars in the field of criminal law, producing a critical chapter entitled “The Supreme Court, In Felony Cases” in the 1929 Illinois Crime Survey, along with bringing forth the texts, “Sentencing and Parole in Illinois” and “Cases and Materials on Criminal Law and Procedure.” 

Watch the full investiture ceremony on our YouTube page.

Jamelle Sharpe delivers remarks during Pat Keenan's investiture ceremony.

Colleagues congratulate Professor Keenan following his investiture ceremony.

Is Utah’s first-in-the-nation pilot program allowing AI to renew prescriptions legal and ethical?

Utah has introduced a first-in-the-nation pilot program that allows AI to independently renew certain prescriptions for patients with chronic conditions. The 12-month initiative, which launched in January 2026, uses an AI system developed by the health tech company Doctronic, and operates under a special state “regulatory sandbox” designed to test emerging technologies. A New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) article, authored by Sara Gerke, Ravi B. Parikh, and I. Glenn Cohen, raises serious questions about its efficacy and legality.

The program currently applies to nearly 200 commonly used medications, including treatments for conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and depression. State officials say the goal is to improve medication adherence. After an initial review period of 250 cases by a physician, the AI system will begin making prescription renewal decisions without direct human oversight.

While the authors agree that “autonomous prescription renewal may offer benefits in narrowly defined clinical contexts,” they focus on several medical and legal issues raised by the program, including:

Risks when the system is used for medications requiring frequent dose adjustments or in patients whose clinical status could change rapidly.
Whether Doctronic problematically failed to seek FDA premarket authorization for the AI system as a medical device.
Whether AI-based prescribing is an instance of “misbranding” carrying potential civil or criminal penalties, because prescribing must be done by “a practitioner licensed by law to administer such drug.”

The article also discusses the complex relationship between state and federal law at play in such autonomous AI systems. “Such systems hold a lot of potential benefit for patients,” said I. Glenn Cohen, a Professor and Deputy Dean at Harvard Law School and one of the article’s authors, “but especially as the first-in-the-nation, it is important for patients that the developers consider all the legal and ethical issues raised.”

Read the full article at nejm.org.

Wilson op-ed: Protecting speech, not encroaching on it, is the better way to serve children

An American flag flies over Memorial Stadium.

Following the Supreme Court decision in Chiles v. Salazar, which found that a Colorado law banning conversion therapy for minors violated the First Amendment rights of therapists, Professor Robin Fretwell Wilson co-authored an op-ed (with Utah state legislator Mike Petersen) for Deseret News.

The pair wrote that they don’t believe the ruling will impact Utah’s own law banning conversion therapy. An excerpt follows:

“Unlike Colorado’s law, Utah’s legislation is viewpoint-neutral. Rather than dictating conversation, Utah’s law protected virtually everything a therapist would want to explore with a minor client through “safe harbors.” Therapists can talk with kids about body image, family dynamics, social media use, religious beliefs or risky behaviors — and children can raise doubts, fears or questions — without being funneled into a single script of affirmation. Destructive aversive practices remain banned — but dialogue, exploration and honesty are protected.”

Read the full op-ed at deseret.com.

Mazzone quoted in NYT after SCOTUS hears oral arguments in birthright citizenship case

The two figures that stand beside Alma Mater represent

Following oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara, most legal experts agreed that although the Supreme Court will most likely decide against the government, the justices’ treatment of the Trump administration’s position lends it respectability and could ultimately allow Congress to return to the question of birthright citizenship.

Professor Jason Mazzone, constitutional law expert, expected far more aggressive questioning of both sides. Speaking to the New York Times, he said, “I kept having to remind myself that I was listening to a Supreme Court oral argument rather than presentation of papers at an academic conference before a polite audience of scholars willing to engage with whatever eccentric idea was being presented.”

“My conclusion from the content and tone of the argument is that there is a majority — possibly even nine justices — already persuaded that the executive order violates the 1952 statute,” he said, “and so the 14th Amendment argument didn’t need the sort of probing that would be required in another case that turned solely on a constitutional issue.”

Read the full story at nytimes.com.

Wilson speaks to Inside Higher Ed about religious conscientious objection legislation in Utah

A new bill pending in the Utah State Legislature would allow students to opt out of coursework that conflicts with their religious beliefs. Critics of the bill are concerned about infringement on academic freedom, but Professor Robin Fretwell Wilson, who helped craft the legislation, believes the bill will function as a mechanism for faculty to more carefully consider the experience of their students when creating assignments. She argued that “a public battle—or a student quietly suffering moral discomfort
—is less likely if there’s a process in place to handle these types of student objections.”

Read the full story at Inside Higher Ed.

Kar honored with 2026 Campus Award for Excellence in Faculty Leadership

Rob Kar shakes hands with Provost Coleman during an awards ceremony.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign presents the Campus Awards for Excellence in Faculty Leadership each year to distinguished faculty who enrich the intellectual vitality of the university and the broader community. The awards were presented in three categories — faculty mentoring, distinguished executive officer and outstanding faculty leadership — to five faculty members during a ceremony hosted by the Office of the Provost on campus in March.

Robin Kar, a professor of law and philosophy and associate dean for curricular innovation at the College of Law, received the Outstanding Faculty Leadership Award. This award recognizes faculty members who have provided extraordinary leadership contributions across many dimensions of shared governance that advance the excellence of a unit, a college and/or the campus, and who exemplify the campus commitment to collaborative decision-making. The award is the highest accolade honoring a faculty member whose professional service has advanced progress toward the Illinois mission.

Kar has garnered several key leadership roles for the Urbana campus and the University of Illinois System, acting as a compass for the development and adoption of meaningful shared governance. These roles include serving as interim head of the Department of Philosophy for three years, chair of the Senate Executive Committee for three years, chair and vice chair of the of the University Senate for two years and chair of the Committee on Faculty Sexual Misconduct for one year. Kar established a style of leadership in the Department of Philosophy grounded in impartiality and open communication. He was credited with hiring and retaining philosophy professors that restored the department into a top 50 program globally and elevated it into the intellectually vibrant community that it is today. Kar was also cited for his initial work in 2018 in updating systemwide policies regarding sexual harassment, sexual assault and other forms of sexual misconduct and remains a trusted voice as those matters are continuously monitored. His approach to leadership — amid navigating complex problems — rests on listening to different and sometimes opposing perspectives and then “working creatively to harmonize them.” Kar’s record of shared governance is now being applied to his current leadership role as the inaugural associate dean for curricular innovation in the College of Law.

Read the full campus press release.

Illinois LawCast: Professor Jason Mazzone on Trump v. Barbara

Illinois LawCast art with portrait of Jason Mazzone

In this special bonus episode, Professor Jason Mazzone joins the podcast to discuss the case of Trump v. Barbara, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on April 1, 2026. Mazzone is the Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Director of the Illinois Program in Constitutional Theory, History, and Law. An expert on issues of constitutional structure and institutional design, with a particular focus on relationships between structural arrangements and individual rights, his groundbreaking work on the Constitution of the United States has appeared in dozens of prominent legal journals. He regularly advises, on a pro bono basis, litigants in cases before the Supreme Court of the United States and in other courts.

The case of Trump v. Barbara centers on Executive Order No. 14,160, issued January 20, 2025, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” which declared that individuals born in the United States are not U.S. citizens at birth if their parents lack sufficient legal status. The order was issued on the alleged basis that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause does not confer birthright citizenship on such children because they are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States in the constitutional sense. In this episode, Professor Mazzone explains the background of the case, what his impressions are from the arguments, and why he believes the Executive Order will be invalidated by a large majority.

Read Professor Mazzone in the New York Times.

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If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, please contact podcast@law.illinois.edu.

Mazzone and Amar publish article on SCOTUSblog

Professor Jason Mazzone joined Professor Vikram Amar in his “Brothers in Law” series for SCOTUSblog, written with his brother, Professor Akhil Amar of Yale Law School, to examine the ways in which President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship is unconstitutional. The article goes beyond the text of the 14th Amendment, and examines the Supreme Court’s landmark 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark as well as the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, both of which support the amendment and represent decades of settled case law. Their work was also quoted in a National Review editorial that predicts a supermajority will invalidate the executive order.

Read the SCOTUSblog article.