Professor Peter Spiro delivered the 2016 Arlin and Neysa Adams Lecture in Constitutional Law on November 16th before a gathering of members of the bar and judiciary, faculty, students, and friends of the law school.
An acclaimed expert in citizenship and immigration law, Spiro focused his remarks on the growing acceptance of dual citizenship, which was once considered an abomination akin to polygamy and carried the penalty of expatriation, but today is fairly common and has no impact on American citizenship status at all.
Professor Spiro is the author of At Home in Two Countries: The Past and Future of Dual Citizenship (NYU Press 2016). He holds the Charles Weiner Chair in international law, and before joining Temple’s faculty in 2006, was the Rusk Professor of Law at the University of Georgia Law School. A former law clerk to Justice David H. Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court, Spiro specializes in international, immigration, and constitutional law. In addition to his current book, Spiro is the author of Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization (Oxford University Press 2008).
Spiro’s lecture was preceded by brief remarks from Provost JoAnne Epps in memoriam of Judge Adams. The 2016 lecture was the first since he passed away earlier in the year. Provost Epps described Judge Adams as, “not just any judge – the most cherished judge of the Third Circuit… a good man, and a just and kind jurist.” Judge Adams served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1969 to 1987. Until January 2012, he was of counsel to Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis, where he was senior partner from 1947 to 1969. Judge Adams also served as Secretary of Public Welfare for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1963 to 1966. He was a past Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, former president of the American Judicature Society, former member of the Board of the Federal Judicial Center, and former Chairman of the Commission for Supreme Court Fellows. He also served from 1990 to 1995 as Independent Counsel appointed by a special U.S. court to investigate alleged corruption in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The Arlin and Neysa Adams Lectureship was established in 2005 through the generosity of the Honorable Arlin Adams SBM ‘41 CLA ‘51 HON ‘65 and his wife, Neysa Adams, to provide for lectures in constitutional law.