Supreme Court Historical Society bestows legal writer awards

During a virtual Zoom meeting on Monday, the California Supreme Court Historical Society congratulated the winners of its 2023 Selma Moidel Smith Student Writing Competition.

The top three writers represented UC Irvine School of Law and UC Berkeley School of Law. They read summaries of their papers to historical society members, including California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero.

Before the three winners summarized their reports, Chief Justice Guerrero said, “It’s a great pleasure and privilege to congratulate these bright young minds of the future who have been judged by our distinguished professors for these awards.”

First place was awarded to UC Berkeley student Kyle DeLand for his paper, “The End of Free Land: The Commodification of Suscol Ranch and the Liberalization of American Colonial Policy.”

DeLand’s study investigates 19th Century California’s “free” versus “cheap” land policies. Throughout history, the state has served as an epicenter for a variety of fights that led to a shift from promoting squatters’ ownership of the land they occupied to a policy that favored speculators. DeLand’s paper offers a provocative re-examination of the work of Paul Wallace Gates and others who have studied Californian land law. DeLand will receive $5,000.

The Second place winner was Michael Banerjee, also of UC Berkeley. His article — “California’s Constitutional University: Private Property, Public Power, and the Constitutional Corporation, 1868-1900” offers a detailed exploration of how one of the world’s premier public universities emerged as the private property of the University of California Regents, non-public constitutional officers, and lawmakers who control an independent branch of government. Considering the constitutional university as a new and uniquely American innovation in higher education that has been widely copied, Bannerjee places it in the context of “chartered directly by the sovereign people.” Banerjee will receive $2,500.

Third place winner was UC Irvine student Miranda Tafoya. Her paper, “A Shameful Legacy: Tracing the Japanese American Experience of Police Violence and Racism from the Late 19th Century Through the Aftermath of World War II,” integrates her family’s experiences with California’s long history of discrimination against Japanese Americans. At a time of renewed concern about policing techniques, she shines a light on the role of police violence in explaining and maintaining California’s internment camps. Tafoya will receive $1,000.

This year the competition named 10 honorable mentions from Davidson College in North Carolina. They are Law & Society students Michael Callahan, Josh Fuhrman, Alex Heffner, Grace Hwang, Henry McGannon, Abby Morris, Emma Peddrick, Maddux Reece, Christopher Sosnik and Jackson Warmack. Their paper “ White v. Kwock Sue Lum: Chinese Adoption and U.S. Immigration Law in the Exclusion Era”, examines Chinese adoption practices and traditions, which have played an important role in American immigration decisions since Chinese exclusion laws were adopted.

The papers were judged by University of Pennsylvania Professor of Constitutional Law Sarah Barringer Gordon and University of California Santa Barbara Professor of Law Laura Kalman. The winning papers will appear in “California Legal History” on the California Supreme Court Historical Society webpage.