Stetson University College of Law presents the 34th Annual National Conference on Law and Higher Education on Feb. 14-20, 2013, in Orlando, Fla.

The weeklong program, led by national legal and higher education experts, will include sessions about helping students thrive in college, achieving drug free schools, compliance with Title IX and college safety.

The opening plenary session this year discusses “The Fate of Race Conscious Admissions: Implications of Fisher v. University of Texas.” The U.S. Supreme Court has heard oral arguments in the Fisher case and a decision is expected early this spring.

The plenary features Jonathan Alger, president of James Madison University, who played a key role in the University of Michigan’s efforts in landmark cases Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger regarding affirmative action in admissions; Ada Meloy, general counsel for the American Council on Education; Richard Kahlenberg, senior fellow at the Century Foundation; and professors Fred Bonner and Michele Alexandre, who have written extensively on issues of race, gender and multiculturalism.

This year’s William A. Kaplin Award will be presented to Kahlenberg, who spearheaded the economic integration movement in K-12 schooling and class-based affirmative action in higher education admissions. Kahlenberg is frequently called upon for his expertise on teachers’ unions, private school vouchers, charter schools, turnaround school efforts, labor organizing and inequality in higher education. He is a nonresident senior fellow at Education Sector and serves on the advisory board of the Pell Institute, the Albert Shanker Institute and the Research Advisory Panel of the National Coalition on School Diversity.

Professor William A. Kaplin is the namesake of the award, which recognizes scholars who have published works on education law that embrace the intersection of law and policy.

For more information, and to register to attend all or a portion of this conference, visit law.stetson.edu//conferences, e-mail [email protected], or call 727-562-7312.