Henry M. Greenberg, president of the New York State Bar Association. Photo: David Handschuh/NYLJ

The New York State Bar Association is bringing in former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson; the mayor of Dayton, Ohio; one of the country's leading civil rights attorneys; and others to discuss the legal side of domestic terrorism fueled by white nationalism next month.

The panel is planned for the upcoming Presidential Summit at the State Bar Association's week-long annual meeting in late January. The discussion is scheduled for Jan. 29.

Hank Greenberg, the current president of the State Bar Association and a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, said the picks were meant to represent a diverse set of viewpoints on how to address domestic terrorism, including mass shootings.

"This is an extraordinary group of panelists to discuss an incredibly important subject," Greenberg said.

While Johnson may be the most familiar name to most, each participant on the panel has something to bring to the table. Johnson, currently a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, was secretary of homeland security during President Barack Obama's second term. 

He is set to be joined by Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, where nine people were killed and 17 others were injured in one of the deadliest mass shootings of the past year. Whaley has since emerged as a national advocate for stronger gun control laws.

"She's lived firsthand with the horror of domestic terrorism," Greenberg said.

While investigators never determined a specific motivation behind the attack, it was determined that the shooter had grown more attracted to violence in the months that preceded the event. 

The American Civil Liberties Union, which once defended the rights of a group of white supremacists to march in a community of Holocaust survivors, will also be represented at the panel. 

David Cole, national legal director for the ACLU, is expected to bring a perspective to the discussion that's not always considered after a mass shooting or incident of domestic terrorism: how to prevent a future attack without unlawfully encroaching on an individual's civil rights.

"How should it be investigated, how should it be prosecuted in appropriate cases, and how do we deal with these issues in a way that's consistent with our constitution and values as a free and open society?" Greenberg said.

Leonard Zeskind, who authored one of the leading books on the history of white nationalism and founded a nonprofit organization to research the issue, will also be on the panel to share his experience. Zeskind wrote "Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream."

He's the founder and president of the Institute for Research and Education of Human Rights, which does comprehensive research on white nationalism and other forms of bigotry, and purports to organize movements to confront those issues. 

"He's written the seminal book on the subject of white nationalism," Greenberg said. "He's an academic. His perspective should be really interesting."

They'll be joined by Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence under Obama. Figluzzi, who's now a frequent commentator on NBC News and MSNBC, served in the national role for more than a year. Figluzzi has a law degree, but doesn't practice.

The panel will be moderated by Craig Boise, the dean of Syracuse University College of Law, which recently experienced its own series of racist incidents on campus. Those incidents weren't physically violent, but some have been critical of the university's response. 

Greenberg said the five panelists, coupled with Boise as moderator, should provide an interesting discussion for anyone interested in how civil rights intersect with issues like domestic terrorism and stronger gun control.

"This is an extraordinary group of panelists to discuss an important subject," Greenberg said. "When we see the horror of mass shootings—gun violence fueled by extreme ideologies—we all recoil in horror. But when we recover from the shock, we have to figure out how to address it."

The State Bar Association may also receive new recommendations in January from its task force on mass shootings and assault weapons, composed of nearly two dozen attorneys, on how new gun control measures could prevent future mass shootings.

Those recommendations could then be adopted by a meeting of the State Bar Association's governing body, which is set to convene at the annual meeting.

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