The 2011 Martin Luther King Lecture, “After Obama: Three ‘Post-Racial’ Challenges,” will take place at Valparaiso University School of Law Jan. 20. The event begins at 4 p.m. at Weseman Hall, 656 S. Greenwich St., Valparaiso. It is free and open to the public. Advance registration is not required.

The featured speaker, Devon Carbado, is professor of law and associate provost of UCLA School of Law. He teaches constitutional criminal procedure, constitutional law, critical race theory, and criminal adjudication.

His talk will focus on whether the election of President Barack Obama represents the beginning of an era of “post-racial” politics. Carbado’s presentation will highlight three challenges to claiming the election of an African-American president means the beginning of a post-racial society, while the issue of race still exists.

The challenges he will address, according to a news release from the law school, are: “What exactly is discrimination on the basis of race? What exactly is colorblindness? And, what exactly is a racial preference?”

This lecture has been approved for one CLE credit hour by the Indiana Commission on Continuing Legal Education. Attorneys seeking CLE credits are responsible for self-reporting to the appropriate MCLE board or commission. A Uniform Certificate of Attendance form will be available at the door.

Carbado writes in the areas of critical race theory, employment discrimination, criminal procedure, constitutional law, and identity. He is editor of “Race Law Stories” with Rachel Moran, and is working on a book on employment discrimination tentatively titled “Acting White,” with Mitu Gulati.

He is a former director of the Critical Race Studies Program at UCLA Law, a faculty associate of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African-American Studies, a board member of the African-American Policy Forum and a James Town Fellow.

In 2003, Carbado was named the recipient of the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching, and he was recently awarded the University Distinguished Teaching Award. Carbado is a recipient of the Fletcher Foundation Fellowship, which is modeled on the Guggenheim awards and is given to scholars whose work furthers the goals of Brown v. Board of Education.

Carbado graduated from Harvard Law School in 1994, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Black Letter Law Journal, a member of the board of student advisors, and winner of the Northeast Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition.

For more information about this lecture, contact Lisa Todd at the law school at (219)465-7893 or lisa.todd@valpo.edu.