Constitutional Litigation Workshop: The Transgender Military Ban

Joshua Matz, a constitutional law attorney at Gupta Wessler and Kaplan Hecker & Fink, will lead a constitutional litigation workshop on the transgender military ban. Joshua will contextualize his discussion about presidential intent and judicial authority exploring topics such as JAG campus recruitment, the Trump Administration’s broad attacks on LGBTQ persons, and the travel ban litigation.

On July 3rd, Joshua filed a brief in the Ninth Circuit on behalf of transgender rights groups arguing that strict scrutiny applies to transgender classifications. On September 26th, Joshua filed another brief on behalf of numerous groups, including Lambda Legal, arguing that the Iowa Supreme Court should apply strict scrutiny to a state regulation forbidding Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming surgeries. Currently, Joshua is working on a brief addressing the transgender military ban before the DC Circuit.

Joshua served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Judge J. Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York.

Joshua graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he served as Articles & Book Reviews Chair of the Harvard Law Review and president of the American Constitution Society. Forbes named him to its “30 under 30” Law & Policy List for 2014, and in 2016 named him an “Alumni All-Star” of past Law & Policy honorees. During law school, he worked at Neufeld Scheck & Brustin, Public Citizen Litigation Group, and the Federal Defender of New York. He holds a B.A. (magna cum laude) from the University of Pennsylvania and an MSt (with distinction) from Oxford University, and is admitted to practice in New York and the District of Columbia.

In March 2012, Joshua and Harvard Law Professor Larry Tribe published “The Constitutional Inevitability of Same-Sex Marriage,” 71 Md. L. Rev. 471 (2012). In June 2014, they published an award-winning book, Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution. And, this year, they published their second book together, To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment.

Joshua is the publisher of Take Care, a blog dedicated to incisive analysis of the legal issues raised by Donald Trump’s presidency. In addition, he has written about a wide range of legal questions under President Trump; his articles have appeared in the Washington Post, The Guardian, The Atlantic, ACS Blog, and Wired Magazine. Joshua is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches a course entitled, “Constitutional Litigation and the Current Administration.”

Hosted by the American Constitution Society.

Dinner will be served.