We are very excited to welcome Prof. Alan Chen as a new member of Disability Law United’s board of directors. Our newest board member is a distinguished professor of law and a nationally-recognized expert in constitutional law and civil rights litigation. Alan has been an important member of our Litigation Committee for the past two years, and we are honored to add his legal expertise and wisdom to our Board.
Alan is a lifetime advocate for civil rights. His research includes federal remedies for civil rights violations, free speech doctrine and theory, and lawyering for social change. He is a past chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Civil Rights. In recent years, he has litigated several high-profile, pro bono civil rights cases in the federal courts, including two suits challenging so-called Ag Gag laws that criminalize efforts of activists and journalists to expose misconduct on factory farms, an excessive force case against law enforcement officers who used pepper spray to subdue peaceful environmental protesters, and a successful facial challenge to a Colorado law mandating that all students and teachers recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. Since joining the University of Denver Sturm College of Law faculty in 1992, Alan has received awards for teaching, contributions to the law review and pro bono legal work. Before entering teaching, Alan was a civil liberties litigator with the ACLU’s Chicago office, focusing primarily on cases concerning the First Amendment, police misconduct, and privacy rights. Before that, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Marvin E. Aspen, U.S. District Court judge for the Northern District of Illinois. Alan received his J.D. from Stanford University in 1985.