Professor Forman to Present Inaugural J. Skelly Wright Lecture on Feb. 12

Professor James Forman Jr. ’92 will present the inaugural lecture of his appointment as J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law on Feb. 12, 2024.

The lecture, titled “Expanding Access to the Legal Profession after SFFA v. Harvard/UNC,” will present Forman’s argument that the current moment demands new and creative thinking about how to bring historically marginalized groups into the legal profession.

The legal profession has always been — and remains — a white-dominated institution, according to Forman. In 2020, only 5% of attorneys were Black — a number unchanged from a decade earlier. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has curtailed race-based affirmative action in higher education through its decision in cases involving Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, Forman believes there is reason to fear that this number will decline.

In his lecture, Forman will also discuss the Access to Law School Program he helped found in 2020. Access to Law is an innovative student-led pipeline program that supports first-generation, low-income, and justice-impacted students from the New Haven area who aspire to become lawyers.

Forman attended public schools in Detroit and New York City before graduating from Atlanta public school. He attended Brown University and Yale Law School before joining the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C., where for six years he represented juveniles and adults charged with crimes. 

His scholarship focuses on schools, police, and prisons, with a particular focus on the race and class dimensions of those institutions. In 2022, Forman helped launch the Law and Racial Justice Center at Yale Law School, which brings together New Haveners, Yale students, staff, and faculty, local government officials, and local and national experts to imagine and implement projects that advance racial justice.

Forman has received honorary degrees from Macalester College and Niagara University, is a Trustee of the Council on Criminal Justice, and is a member of the American Law Institute. In 2023, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

The J. Skelly Wright Professorship of Law is named in honor of James Skelly Wright ’61 Hon. LL.D. (1911–1988), the renowned judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The professorship, established in 2008, grew out of a teaching fellowship to honor the judge by inspiring students with the ideal of public service. 

The lecture, which is open to the public, will be held Monday, Feb. 12 at 4:30 p.m. in Room 127 of the Sterling Law Building. Registration is required by Feb. 10, 2024.