John P. Frank Memorial Lecture

25th Annual John P. Frank Memorial Lecture with Matthew Desmond

What: discussing his most recent book "Poverty, by America"

Where: Herberger Theater in Phoenix, Arizona and live streamed through ASU Live

When: March 25th, 2024 at 6 p.m. Arizona time/PDT 

Matthew Desmond is the Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology and the founder and principal investigator of the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. He is the award-winning author of "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" (2016), which won the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, Carnegie Medal, and PEN / John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction. "Evicted" combines years of embedded fieldwork with painstakingly gathered data and transforms our understanding of inequity and economic exploitation in America. 

A former member of the Harvard Society of Fellows, Desmond's research focuses on poverty in America, city life, housing insecurity, public policy, racial inequality, and ethnography. He is the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award, and the William Julius Wilson Early Career Award.

He has written essays on educational inequality, dangerous work, political ideology, race and social theory, and the inner-city housing market. His work has been supported by the Gates, Horowitz, Ford, JBP, MacArthur, National Science, Russell Sage, and W.T. Grant Foundations, as well as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. He is a Contributing Writer for The New York Times Magazine, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker and The Chicago Tribune.

For more information on Matthew Desmond, please visit justshelter.org and evictionlab.org.

This ASU School of Social Transformation event is in partnership with Center for Work and Democracy, The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, and the City of Phoenix. 

 Listen to KJZZ interview here

 Read about the lecture here

The John P Frank Lecture is the School of Social Transformation's signature annual event. The endowed lecture series honors the memory of attorney John P. Frank (1917-­2002), a leader in the Arizona legal community and one of our nation's great legal minds.

The series, which focuses on pressing justice issues of our time, honors Frank's life-long commitments to justice, scholarship and law. Justice and Social Inquiry is proud to host the John P. Frank Lecture, which has been made possible through the generosity of the Phoenix law firm Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP (formerly Lewis and Roca), which Frank joined in 1954, and Frank's many friends and admirers.

Read the edited collection of the first 12 lectures in Law and the Quest for Justice.

Donate to the John P. Frank Memorial Lecture

About John P. Frank

John P. Frank is recognized as part of the team that represented Ernesto Miranda before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1966 – the case in which the High Court ruled that suspects must be advised of their right to legal counsel. Frank wrote or delivered arguments for numerous First Amendment and desegregation cases and made important contributions to the historical brief for Brown v. Board of Education. He is remembered as well for his expertise in civil procedure and standards for judicial disqualification. A lawyer, constitutional scholar, historian, author and mentor, his opinion was sought by presidents and Supreme Court justices and he was influential in shaping public policy in Arizona and the nation.

Lifetime Donors

Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP

Dr. Mary Margaret Fonow and Ms. Corinne Dillon

Mr. Jerome Hirsch

Whiteman Foundation / Jack Whiteman

Mr. Jose A. Cardenas

Mr. Joseph E. and Mrs. Sarah McGarry

Hon. Patricia K. Norris and Dr. Geoffrey W. Gates

Mr. James P. and Mrs. Judith Walsh

Hon. Dawn M. Bergin 

Ms. Uta Behrens

Coppersmith Brockelman PLC

Mr. John P. and Mrs. Lorraine W. Frank

The Family of John P. Frank

Ms. Susan M. Freeman

Mr. Richard and Mrs. Susan Goldsmith

Mr. Marty and Mrs. Kathy Harper

Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust

Dr. Marjorie S. Zatz

Hon. Charles G. Case, II & Ms. Pamela J. Culwell

Ms. Amy Gittler & Mr. Michael Sillyman

Mr. Andrew S. Gordon

Hon. Janet Napolitano

Mrs. Karen C. & Mr. Steve Owens

Mr. Randall & Ms. Gina Papetti

Dr. Doris Marie Provine & Mr. J. Michael Shelton

Hon. Mary M. Schroeder & Prof. Milton R. Schroeder