President Obama will visit the Law School on Thursday to discuss his nomination of Chief Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. This will be Obama’s first public discussion of the nomination since he announced it on March 16.

The town-hall format of the event will enable the president to talk with law students and push the importance of Senate consideration of his nomination. Controversy regarding the nomination looms as Obama attempts to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat with only a year left in office and in the face of strong opposition by Republican Senate leaders.

Both Obama and Garland consider themselves Chicagoans. From 1992 until his election to Senate in 2004, the president served as a professor at the Law School. The city will also be the site of the Obama presidential library, which is expected to be completed by 2021.

Garland, who has served as chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 1997, was born in Chicago and raised in the suburb of Lincolnwood. Upon being nominated by Obama, Garland stated that it was a “a great privilege to be nominated by a fellow Chicagoan.”

The event is exclusively open to Law School students.