The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies invited two professors to give a presentation on the presidential “kill list” and other aspects of warfare Monday at the law school.
Professor Michael W. Lewis of the Ohio Northern University College of Law and Pepperdine Associate Professor of Law Gregory S. McNeal discussed the advantages and disadvantages of controversial warfare tactics. Though originally expected to debate the most points and offered the audience a picture of the new times in war.
According to the Federalist Society President Sean O’Neil, both professors are members of a small group of law professors who have served our nation and now teach national security law.
“I thought the opportunity to get both of them in a classroom to discuss the subject would be beneficial to our members and the law school community at large,” O’Neil said.
Lewis focused on “Drones and Boundaries of the Battlefield,” which was a seminar he originally presented in 2011 at the 24th Annual Military Operations Conference. He explained to the audience the benefits and consequences of drones, as well as other wartime expectations of nations. Lewis then gave examples of recent occasions that these boundaries have been or must be crossed.
McNeal chose to concentrate on “targeted killing” by the United States. With the aid of statistical graphs, McNeal was able to show the students the minimal amount of problems within this system of government during wartime. He described how the different procedures and agencies have their strengths and weaknesses, and how these impact our domestic and foreign societies.
Lewis, a former Top Gun pilot, studied at Harvard Law School and Johns Hopkins University, and is considered one of the nation’s leading legal scholars on national security law. The Courts of Appeals in the 7th, 9th and 11th Circuit has cited Lewis’ work, and he has testified before Congress on the subject.
McNeal studied at Case Western Reserve, American and Lehigh universities. He is considered to be one of the most dynamic professors on campus, with a unique ability to engage the student body. Furthermore, he is a leading scholar on national security law and drone technology.
O’Neil describes the Society as a non-profit and nonpartisan group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order, with the beliefs that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be. They seek to promote these principles and further their application.
The Federalist Society looks forward to future seminars.
