Leading American Civil Rights Scholar Lani Guinier to Deliver UCSB's Shirley Kennedy Memorial Lecture Feb. 25
Lani Guinier, one of the nation's leading civil rights scholars and the first black woman to be appointed a tenured professor at Harvard Law School, will deliver UC Santa Barbara's Shirley Kennedy Memorial Lecture on Sunday, Feb. 25 at 4 p.m. in Victoria Hall in Santa Barbara.
The title of her presentation will be "Race, Gender, and Activism in Our Communities."
The event, which is sponsored by UCSB's Center for Black Studies Research, is free, and the public is invited to attend.
Guinier's scholarly writings and op-ed articles span a range of topics, including the relationship between democracy and the law, the role of race and gender in the political process, equity in college admissions, and affirmative action.
Her work came under intense public scrutiny in 1993 when President William J. Clinton nominated her to head the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
After an intense media campaign by various conservative critics, Clinton withdrew her nomination.
Guinier is the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard.
Prior to joining the Harvard faculty in 1998, she was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
She previously headed the voting rights project at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and worked in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
She is a graduate of Yale Law School.
Guinier has published numerous scholarly articles and books, including "The Tyranny of the Majority;" "Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School and Institutional Change" (with co-authors Michelle Fine and Jane Balin); "Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice;" and "The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy" (co-authored with Gerald Torres); and "Meritocracy, Inc.: How Wealth Became Merit, Class Became Race and Higher Education Became a Gift From the Poor to the Rich" (forthcoming Harvard University Press 2007).
She is a recipient of the Champion of Democracy Award from the National Women's Political Caucus; the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession; the Rosa Parks Award from the American Association of Affirmative Action; and the 2002 Sacks-Freund Award for Teaching Excellence from Harvard Law School.
The Shirley Kennedy Memorial Lecture honors one of Santa Barbara's most outspoken advocates for women and people of color.
Kennedy helped transform the Santa Barbara community with her commitment to social justice, activism, and democracy.
Related Links
Share this article
