Professor, fellow teaching constitutional law course in Liberia

Indiana University Maurer School of Law Professor Gene Shreve will embark on a two-week trek to Liberia to teach a course in constitutional law.

It will be the first trip to the African nation for Shreve, who will partner with Jallah A. Barbu, a research fellow at the Center for Constitutional Democracy, to teach "Comparative Liberian and American Constitutional Law" at the University of Liberia's Lewis Arthur Grimes School of Law in Monrovia. The class will run from June 22 through July 3.

"The course will explore the traditional interpretations of these two constitutions," Shreve said. "In significant ways they are very much alike, and in significant ways they are very unalike. We'll look at both in comparative texts of their constitutions and in the manner in which the high courts have an impact."

IU and the CCD have strong ties to Liberia. The CCD provides material aid to the University of Liberia and contributes to the teaching mission of its law school, and assists with legal research and law reform efforts there. Liberia's former president Amos Sawyer is a faculty member in IU's political science department, and the Bloomington campus is home to an extensive collection of Liberian scholarship and literature.

Barbu is an alumnus of the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law — Liberia's only law school — and is the former general secretary of the Liberian National Bar Association. He is credited with heading two committees that drafted the act on freedom of information and the press and the mediation law of Liberia.

Shreve said he is excited to make his first trip to Liberia and to co-teach with Barbu.

"I've been wanting to go there for a few years now, and finally everyone's schedule worked out to where we could do it," Shreve said. "The legal traditions in Liberia are more like the U.S. than any other African country. That comes largely as a result of the history of Liberia itself. It was settled in significant part by freed slaves who were repatriated from the U.S."

Though the trip is not being sponsored by the CCD, Shreve said the center has been a tremendous help in setting up the opportunity to teach.