A driving purpose behind the revival of the Res Gestae is to promote connections between Michigan Law students and professors. One way of making that happen is by allowing students to get to know professors on a more personal level, which is why we have begun a series of professor interview.
Res Gestae: What about Michigan Law convinced you to come teach here?
Professor Collins: Michigan is a fantastic law school. There is a cohort of professors here who I consider intellectual fellow travelers. Although most of us write on different areas of the law, methodologically we are compatible. It is so important to have colleagues who will challenge my ideas in ways that will improve my scholarship.
RG: How has MLaw been for you since you’ve gotten here?
PC: Great! Before you make a lateral move, you really do not have much time with the students. I had hoped that the students would be as wonderful as everyone says they are. And after getting to know students through class and office hours, I can honestly say that everything I heard was true.
RG: You do have the best super section! But on a more serious note, the work you are doing at the intersection of family, gender, and citizenship is fascinating. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got interested in that topic?
PC: There are many reasons I began writing about this cluster of issues, not the least of which is that mixed status families (families where some members are citizens and others are not) are often required to navigate incredibly complicated citizenship laws in their effort to live together in the United States. For those families, the stakes are very high. Depending on the circumstances, an erroneous citizenship determination can lead to family separation. I first became aware of these laws, and the problems they can cause, when I was in law school. The Supreme Court decided a case rejecting a constitutional challenge to a federal citizenship statute that was sex discriminatory. I found the Court’s opinion ill-informed. I decided to write about it.
RG: That case was Miller v. Albright. What did the Supreme Court decide in Miller? What intrigued you about this work?
PC: The petitioners in Miller challenged a citizenship statute that treats foreign-born children of American fathers differently than foreign-born children of American mothers in some instances. The petitioners argued that the statute is unconstitutional because it discriminates on the basis of sex, but the Supreme Court disagreed. There were, of course, arguments on both sides, but the question that I kept grappling with was, at a time when the Court had declared that sex discrimination by the government was almost always unconstitutional, why was the Court giving the federal government a pass in this case? And why did the federal government put so much effort into defending the law? One problem was that the lawyers who briefed Miller had a very limited understanding of the history of the citizenship statutes at issue, and the related family law issues. So in my law school note, I provided a much more extensive and nuanced explanation of the historical development of the sex discriminatory citizenship law and explained how that history was relevant to the modern equal protection analysis.
RG: This is such an important area of the law. From law school to the book you’re writing now, how has this idea developed?
PC: I did not write about these issues again for over a decade. I clerked, I practiced law, and when I became a law professor I wrote about other things for many years. But the legal questions that had been raised in Miller did not go away. In fact, as debates over immigration intensified in the early 2000s, there were more challenges to the discriminatory citizenship statutes. In addition, it had been clear to me all along that the sex discriminatory citizenship statutes had often been implemented in ways that were racially salient. By that I mean, the laws were interpreted and enforced in ways that were not always neutral with respect to the race of the families involved.
These days, I spend a lot of time in the archives trying to figure out how and why this area of citizenship law has been shaped, not only by archaic ideas about parental roles, but also by racially biased understandings of who should count as an American citizen. To give just one example, a bill was proposed in the 1930s that would have excluded children of Chinese American parentage from the benefit of the statute that grants citizenship to the foreign-born children of American parents. This proposal was obviously animated by a very racist conception of American citizenship, which is unsurprising given that at the time people of Chinese descent were barred from naturalizing.
What is surprising is that the bill did not become law. Even in the 1930s, there was open resistance to the idea that Congress would bar the children of certain races from acquiring citizenship through their American parents. Although discrimination against the foreign-born children of Chinese Americans continued in other forms, in the legislative debates over that bill one can see the buds of ideas about racial equality in citizenship and immigration law. Those ideas became more mainstream in the 1950s and 1960s. My book is about how this area of law has changed over time. It is not the case that everyone in the past believed one way, and we just woke up one day and realized that it was all wrong. It took time for Americans to recalibrate their ideas about what it means to be a family and what it means to be a citizen.
RG: It’s amazing that you, as a student, found an issue that you’re still working on, even with breaks in research. Any advice for a student who wants to explore these questions of law?
PC: I tell this story because it is important that law students believe in themselves. It is easy to be overwhelmed by all the new information, the new ways of thinking, speaking, and writing. It is important to master what you are being taught, and many of the questions you have about the law will be answered. But eventually you’ll come upon unanswered questions and unsolved problems – maybe while you are in law school, but certainly when you are practicing law. I want to empower students to identify those questions and problems and then set out to answer and solve them. Don’t underestimate your potential.
RG: After law school, you completed two federal clerkships: One for the Hon. John Walker of the Second Circuit, and one for the Hon. Kimba Wood of the Southern District of New York. How was that experience?
PC: I can’t recommend clerking enough. There is so much to learn when you first graduate from law school, and clerking is one of the best ways to learn it. You should pursue the right clerkship(s) for you. If you want to be a litigator, a district court clerkship is perfect. In an appellate court clerkship, you have much more time to think and write about the law. In both types of clerkships, you get to try your hand at writing the first drafts of judicial opinions. That process is nerve-wracking at first. You’re in the office until 3 A.M. trying to get it right. But there is no better way to learn.
RG: Do you have any advice for those of us interested in clerkships?
PC: The best conception of clerking is, “You are a lawyer for your judge.” It is your job to prepare your judge for the cases she is deciding. Before oral argument, you write memos explaining the issues and relevant law, then the judge peppers you with questions. It is a lot like being cold-called. It is high stakes because people’s lives and livelihoods are at stake. You will not always agree with the judge, but your job is to help her write the strongest opinion that supports her resolution of the legal issues presented.
RG: Well, it sounds like clerking is an absolute blast. Speaking of fun, what do you do when you aren’t teaching the next generation of lawyers?
PC: I am a huge outdoors enthusiast. I am a four-season outsider; no matter the weather, I will run, hike, camp, and swim.
RG: How have you been adjusting to Ann Arbor? Have you gotten a chance to explore the outdoors much here?
PC: Ann Arbor is beautiful. The surrounding area is a bit flatter than I’m used to, but it is easier to get out and do stuff outdoors than it was in Boston.
RG: Are there any bucket list items you have while you’re out here?
PC: I want to put on my midwestern adventurer hat. I’d love to canoe the boundary waters in Minnesota, so if anyone has any advice or has done it before, please let me know!
RG: Now onto the hard questions: If you were stranded on a desert island, what would you bring with you and why would it be the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure?
PC: (Laughs) I was just thinking about this. Have you ever read Lord of the Flies?
RG: I am delighted to know where this is going, and yes I have.
PC: I firmly believe that if they had the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or another set of procedural rules, things may have turned out differently. A society must have the means to resolve disputes in a way that doesn’t escalate, that is perceived as fair and is fair.
RG: I am so happy you had an actual answer to that question, that was great. The second hard-hitting question, where did you get your glasses? I’ve been waiting to ask that since orientation.
PC: (Laughs) I have had them for so long, I don’t remember. I need to get new ones actually, so if anyone has any suggestions for glasses I should get, I’d be happy to hear them.
RG: What is your guilty pleasure song?
PC: I don’t feel guilty about it — my go-to songs are by Prince, David Bowie, and Annie Lennox.
RG: Lastly, an interview wouldn’t be complete without some “gotcha journalism.” Some of my sources saw you at K&E Cafe. What is your go-to coffee order?
PC: I usually just get a skinny latte at K&E because they don’t have my usual order, which is a flat white. But when I’m at home, I am a French press woman. I keep it simple.
Res Gestae Writer Zoe Hayes can be reached at zoehayes@umich.edu.
