Staff Biographies
White Center Director
Melissa Hart
Melissa Hart has been teaching at the University of Colorado Law School since 2000. A 1995 graduate of Harvard Law School, she clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the Second Circuit and for Justice John Paul Stevens on the United States Supreme Court. Professor Hart practiced law for several years in Washington, D.C., including as a Trial Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. She teaches Employment Discrimination, Education and the Constitution, Legal Ethics and Professionalism, Civil Procedure and Supreme Court Decisionmaking. . Her scholarship focuses primarily on employment discrimination. In particular, she writes about large class action lawsuits challenging structural discrimination in the workplace.
In 2007, Professor Hart worked with a group of students to institute CU Law School’s Public Service Pledge Program. She served as the director of that program for its first year. Professor Hart remains active in the Colorado legal community, serving on the Colorado Supreme Court’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Board and the Board of Continuing Judicial and Legal Education. Her pro bono work has included writing amicus briefs in cases before the United States Supreme Court and several federal courts of appeals and representing a group of Colorado citizens in an election law dispute in 2008.
Professor Hart was appointed Director of the Byron R. White Center in 2010. Her goal as Director is to expand the visibility and prominence of the Center within the constitutional law community, and expand outreach around the state.
White Center Fellow
Darrell D. Jackson is a doctoral candidate in the University of Colorado School of Education. He received his law degree from George Mason University, where he co-founded the Civil Rights Law Journal. Prior to moving to Colorado, he served the George Mason University School of Law as an Assistant Dean and Director of Diversity Services. Before joining George Mason, he practiced law as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia and as an Assistant County Attorney in Fairfax County, Virginia. Mr. Jackson served as judicial law clerk to The Honorable L.M. Brinkema in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and to The Honorable Marcus D. Williams in the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit of Virginia.
Legal Project Coordinator
Belinda Paredes completed her undergraduate education at Colorado College, and earned her law degree from the University of Colorado Law School in 2010. Belinda currently is working to update the White Center’s website and utilize social media to disseminate information about the Center’s mission and events more effectively. In her free time, she enjoys tennis, playing Mah Jongg, and hiking and camping with her husband and two sons.
White Center Student Fellows
Laura McNabb is a third year law student who plans to begin a career as a high school civics teacher after finishing law school. While with the White Center, Laura wants to help develop programs that increase awareness and knowledge about the U.S. Constitution in the community generally, and among high school students specifically.
Sarah Morris, a second year law student, chose to enter law school after receiving a Master of Arts in Nonprofit Management. Sarah hopes to use the skills she has gained studying nonprofits and the law to help expand the study of the Constitution in schools, and organize speakers and events that reach out to students, scholars, and practitioners alike.
Gavin Wolny, a second year law student, wants to continue and expand the White Center’s mission of encouraging constitutional dialogue between the legal profession and the wider community, especially through outreach to the schools.
White Center Intern
Orlando Rubio is an undergraduate at the University of Colorado who became interested in studying the Constitution after taking a class on the subject in college. In his time with the White Center, Orlando hopes learn more about the Constitution while helping the Center expand its educational outreach activities.
