The League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge invites the community to Lunch with the League at Noon, Tuesday, March the 16th when Valorie K. Vojdik, Waller Lansden Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee/Knoxville, will address the current struggle over voting rights in the United States. The gathering will be virtual and may be accessed by following instructions provided at the close of this article.

Professor Valorie Vojdik holds an A.B. degree from Brown University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law. She began teaching in 1994 at New York University School of Law before moving to Western New England College School of Law and later to West Virginia University College of Law. She has also taught as a visiting professor at the University of Richmond and as a research scholar/visiting lecturer at the University of Cape Town.

Coming to Tennessee in 2011, Professor Vojdik currently teaches civil procedure, civil rights, gender and the law, and children and the law. She has also taught in the university's Advocacy and Appellate Clinics. She has worked as a consultant to the European Union’s Seyada Project, which seeks to empower the Palestinian judicial system and has taught for the Open Society Foundation in its Network Scholarship Program since 2007.

Dr. Vojdik’s presentation to the League will focus on discriminatory efforts in the United States to limit access to the polls—a continuing challenge to American democracy from our country's earliest days. The 1965 Voting Rights Act sought to limit the impact of that challenge; however, a Supreme Court ruling in 2013 turned the clock back on many of the protections the Act had put in place. Freed of oversight by the federal courts, a number of states moved to erect voting barriers discriminating against those citizens already holding the least political power in the country.

Similarly, the 1965 Act also sought to limit political gerrymandering wherein district boundaries are manipulated to grant a political party or group an unfair political advantage through the manipulation of district boundaries. The appeals process, however, eventuated in these cases also coming to the Supreme Court; and in 2019, the Court took away federal jurisdiction over states in these matters, clearing the way for states to engage in increasingly secretive and non-transparent redistricting. Once again, favored groups gained power to the detriment of disadvantaged groups and political opponents.    

Opposing partisan and racial gerrymandering that strips rights away from voters, the League of Women Voters welcomes League members and nonmembers alike as we focus on the serious challenges the present situation poses to our shared democracy.

If you are not a member but would like to view the presentation, contact maryannreeves1 [at] att.net for a link to the meeting.  A couple of days following the presentation, a recording may also be viewed on the League’s website at (https://my.lwv.org/tennessee/oak-ridge).

The League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge is a nonpartisan political organization for men and women. It encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.