Two professors from Pitt’s School of Law have been appointed to the Pennsylvania Advisory Committee of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission – an independent agency founded by Congress in 1957 to investigate issues of race, color, religion, gender, Age, disability or national origin. There are councils in all 50 states.
Associate Professor Jessie Allen (left) and Professor Mary Crossley were appointed to the panel for a four-year term. They will consult with members of the commission and provide advice and recommendations on the areas they have examined.
Allen, a civil rights attorney, teaches courses on law, legal ethics, and property. She writes in the field of legal theory, including a longstanding series of essays on the work of William Blackstone, some of which appear on her blog, Blackstone Weekly. Prior to Pitt, Allen served as an attorney at the NYU School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice, where she focused on challenging state laws that prohibit voting on the basis of criminal convictions.
Crossley, a widely recognized scholar in the field of disability and health law, has examined pressing legal issues arising from advances in medicine. These issues include discrimination in the treatment of infants with HIV infection and newborns with disabilities, and the impact of the Disabled Americans Act. Crossley is the director of Pitt Law’s health law program, teaching courses in health law, bioethics and law, and family law, among others. She was Dean of Pitt Law from 2005 to 2012.
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