Goldsmith, Barco and Mack to Lecture at SCHS

The Supreme Court Historical Society has announced a three-part lecture series for Spring 2025:

Lecture One – Virtual
In Hoffa’s Shadow: Chuckie O’Brien, the Supreme Court, and a Son’s Search for the Truth
A Lecture by Professor Jack Goldsmith
March 19, 2025 | 12:00 PM ET | Via ZOOM

As a young man, Jack Goldsmith revered his stepfather, longtime Jimmy Hoffa associate Chuckie O’Brien. But as he grew older and pursued a career in law and government, he came to doubt and distance himself from the man long suspected by the FBI of perpetrating Hoffa’s disappearance on behalf of the mob. It was only years later, when Goldsmith was serving as assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, that he began to reconsider his stepfather and to understand Hoffa’s legacy.  

Professor Goldsmith wrote In Hoffa’s Shadow to share how he reunited with the stepfather he’d disowned and then set out to unravel one of the twentieth century’s most persistent mysteries and Chuckie’s role in it.

Lecture Two – Virtual
Denied but Not Defeated: Myra Bradwell and the Battle for Women in Law
A Lecture by Siobhan Barco
April 22, 2025 | 2:00 PM ET | Via ZOOM

Myra Colby Bradwell (February 12, 1831 – February 14, 1894) was a Chicago publisher and political activist. She attempted in 1869 to become the first woman to be admitted to the Illinois bar to practice law but was denied admission by the Illinois Supreme Court in 1870 because of her sex. She was denied again on appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States in Bradwell v. Illinois (1873). What happened to Ms. Bradwell after her case was decided?

Lecture Three – In Person
The Vanishing of Lloyd Gaines: A Supreme Court Victory and a Civil Rights Mystery
A Lecture by Professor Kenneth W. Mack
May 21, 2025 | 6:00 PM ET | Supreme Court of the United States
Tickets: $50 | Reception to Follow | Advance Registration Required

Lloyd Gaines (1911 – disappeared March 19, 1939) was born in Mississippi and moved to Missouri with his mother and siblings.  He attended the Blacks-only Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.  He then applied to the University of Missouri Law School, which did not admit Black students. With the help of the NAACP, he was the petitioner in Gaines v. Canada. In 1938,  the Supreme Court held that states that provided a school for  White students had to allow Black students to attend or provide a separate school for them. Shortly after this victory though, Lloyd Gaines disappeared. He was never found.  What happened to Lloyd Gaines?

--Dan Ernst