IU McKinney Names Faculty Members to Prestigious Professorships
07/01/2025
Four members of the IU McKinney School of Law faculty have been named to some of the law school’s prestigious professorships. Vice Dean Max Huffman, Associate Dean for Research Michael J. Pitts, and Professor Margaret Tarkington have been named to the Samuel R. Rosen Professorship. Professor Lahny Silva has been named to the Cleon H. Foust Professorship.
“Professorships at IU McKinney recognize faculty members' professional accomplishments and those who have achieved a high level of scholarship,” said Dean Karen E. Bravo. “Each of these professors is deserving of this significant honor. We look forward to their achievement and contributions for years to come.”
Vice Dean Huffman led the successful launch of IU McKinney’s hybrid part-time J.D. program in the 2023-2024 academic year. He also has been instrumental in creating and strengthening the partnerships the law school has with University Toulouse-1 Capitole and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, and the IU schools of Public Health, and Tourism and Sports Management. These partnerships expand the law school’s offerings and increase its global presence.
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Associate Dean Pitts’ scholarly work focuses on the law of democracy, particularly voting rights and election administration. He has written over two dozen articles, essays, and book reviews that have appeared in journals such as The Florida State Law Review, The U.C.-Irvine Law Review, The American University Law Review, and The Alabama Law Review. He is also a co-author of an election law casebook titled Election Law Litigation (Aspen 2014, 2d Ed. 2021). His work has been cited numerous times in law reviews, political science journals, briefs, federal and state judicial opinions, and congressional testimony.
Professor Tarkington is a well-known expert in the area of attorney free speech rights. Her book, Voice of Justice: Reclaiming the First Amendment Rights of Lawyers, was published in 2018. She is a dean’s fellow and co-director of the J.D. Program and Evaluation Assessment at IU McKinney, where she teaches professional responsibility, civil procedure, and federal courts.
The Samuel R. Rosen Professorships are named in honor of the late Judge Rosen, a respected member of Indiana's legal community. The 1933 graduate of Harvard Law School held a number of judicial posts after he moved to Indiana in 1963, including serving as deputy attorney general, an Indiana Supreme Court administrator and the state's first senior judge accorded "at-large" judicial authority in Indiana. In 1992, Judge Rosen made a gift for the benefit of the law school to honor his Harvard classmate, Cleon H. "Bill" Foust, who served as dean of the school from 1967 until 1973. That gift supports these endowed professorships.
Professor Lahny Silva is the director of IU McKinney’s Re-Entry Clinic at IU McKinney. Clinic students, who must be certified legal interns, work as mentors to federal probationers and provide community outreach and legal representation in underserved areas in Indianapolis. She also is the faculty supervisor for the Second Chance Re-Entry Assistance Program, or S.C.R.A.P., a student organization at IU McKinney. Working with people who were formerly incarcerated, students provide driver’s license reinstatement assistance and help finding employment.
Professor Silva was named an IU Indianapolis Chancellor’s Professor for 2023, the recipient of the Chancellor’s Faculty Award for Excellence in Civic Engagement and received the Charles R. Bantz Chancellor’s Community Fellowship in recognition of her scholarship and work.
The Cleon H. Foust Professorship was funded through the generosity of the estate of Cleon H. “Bill” Foust and gifts in his honor. He served on the faculty at IU McKinney for 24 years and was dean from 1967 to 1973. Foust had served as Indiana Attorney General from 1947 to 1949, and as chairman of the Indiana Correctional Code Study Commission after his retirement from the law school in 1978. He often served as a criminal justice advisor and served as vice chair of the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.
