Michael Foreman

Meeting of November 17, 2010 - Impact Of Economy On Older Workers

Professor Michael Foreman is the Director of the Civil Rights Appellate Clinic at Penn State's Dickinson School of Law. In addition to other work, the clinic has served as counsel on amicus briefs filed with the United States Supreme Court in several of their recent employment cases including Thompson v. North American Stainless, LP, Staub v. Proctor Hospital, Rent-A-Center, West, Inc. v. Jackson, Gross v FBL Financial Services, Inc., Ricci v. DeStefano, and Pyett v. 14 Penn Plaza, LLC. He is also serving as counsel in several other cases in the federal appellate courts. Professor Foreman teaches an advanced employment discrimination course at Penn State Law as well. Immediately prior to joining Penn State Law he served as the Deputy Director of Legal Programs for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where he was responsible for supervising all litigation in employment discrimination, housing, education, voting rights, and environmental justice. Professor Foreman's professional and scholarly focus has centered primarily on civil rights issues and employment discrimination and his most recent article, Gross v. FBL Financial Services—Oh So Gross!, appears in the University of Memphis Law Review, Volume 40, pages 681-703 (Summer 2010). Some of his other recent presentations include:

October 8, 2010, featured presenter at the New Mexico State Bar Foundation 2010 Employment and Labor Institute, In the Big House and On the Bubble: A Discussion on Mixed Motive, Retaliation, Arbitration, and Issues the Supreme Court May be Reviewing Next.

May 5, 2010, testified before U.S, House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor & Pensions on "HR 3721: Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act."

October 7, 2009, testified before U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing on "Workplace Fairness; Has The Supreme Court Been Misinterpreting Laws designed to protect American Workers from Discrimination?"

July 15, 2009 , a panelist on the ALI-ABA Teleseminar "Supreme Court Employment Law Update 2009"

March 4, 2009 , a panelist in a legal roundtable at the 2009 Higher Education Symposium held at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, discussing the Supreme Court Employment Docket

November 20, 2008, a witness before the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on the use of criminal histories as an employment screening device.

Prior to his work with the Lawyers' Committee, Professor Foreman was the acting Deputy General Counsel for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He previously served as a clinical supervisor in the Southern Methodist University School of Law Civil Clinic and was a partner in the Baltimore, Maryland, law firm Kaplan, Heyman, Greenberg, Engelman & Belgrad, P.A., where he led the firm's employment law group. Professor Foreman was also general counsel for the Maryland Commission on Human Relations and was an appellate attorney with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In 1998, Shippensburg University honored Professor Foreman with the Jesse S. Heiges Distinguished Alumnus Award. In 2008 he was selected as a Wasserstein Fellow by Harvard Law School, which recognizes dedicated service in the public interest and was awarded the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights' Dorothy I. Height Chairperson's Award of Special Merit. He was also a recipient of the Carnegie Medal for Outstanding Heroism.