University of Colorado Law Dean Inniss Says What Courts Leave Unsaid Has Meaning and Consequences

June 15, 2026— Lolita Buckner Inniss, dean of the University of Colorado Law School, shared insights from her ongoing scholarship, “Race, Silence, and Selective Law: Madison Jeffers and the Architecture of United States Legal Silence,” as part of the University of Houston Law Center’s 2026 Colloquium Series.

Her work pairs the historical case of slave catcher Madison Jeffers and a modern immigration incident involving ICE and a foreign consulate to show that law often reveals its true priorities not through decisive rulings but through deliberate silence — instances she calls “legal silence.”

“The silence is the point,” she said. “It’s not so much the outcomes, it’s the choice of not fully articulating.”

The presentation focused on how legal systems confront moments of crisis and conflict by choosing what to address and what to ignore, and its implications for law, justice and accountability in both historical and contemporary contexts.

Inniss’ scholarship largely centers on property law and the intersection of race and legal systems. Her body of work includes numerous articles and essays, as well as the legal history book “The Princeton Fugitive Slave: The Trials of James Collins Johnson” (Fordham University Press, 2020), the basis of her presentation.

During the talk, she described the term “legal historic moment” where institutional outcomes are shaped by intentional non-engagement.

To illustrate the concept, Inniss cited the 1836 case United States v. Jeffers, in which courts addressed the invasion of a foreign consulate while remaining silent about the seizure of an enslaved man removed from that space. She compared that example with a 2026 incident involving ICE agents attempting to enter the Ecuadorian consulate, arguing that the law continues to prioritize procedural violations over the human consequences of enforcement actions.

Inniss said that same hierarchy of priorities exists today and lead to “legal historic moments” not because of what courts declare but rather what issues courts refuse to acknowledge and confront.

“There are structural comparisons [of] enforcement discretion without meaningful accountability,” she said. “That was true in the 1800s when Jeffers was acting [and] That's what's true now.”

Inniss shared her concern with the UHLC audience: These instances of “legal silences” are growing and becoming increasingly normalized.

“I think we are being desensitized to silences in addressing what are clearly, or at least what clearly could be the foundation of illegal activities,” she said. “And it feels more like a choice because we can see.”

The talk closed with Inniss emphasizing the idea that what goes unaddressed in the law may be as consequential as what is written in the books and how that silence shapes current debates about immigration, accountability and power in the broader society.