Heritage Lecture Series
Dr. Lani Guinier
The Andrea Neves and Barton Evans Social Justice Lecture Series Presents
Rethinking Race & Class:
A New Vision of Social Justice with Harvard Law Professor Lani Guinier
Monday, February 26
SSU Evert B. Person Theatre at 7:30 p.m.
Free to SSU Students, Staff & Faculty
$10.00 General Admission
Wikipedia - Lani Guinier
Harvard Faculty Website
www.minerscanary.org
On Monday, February 26 at 7:30 PM in the Evert B. Person theatre on the SSU campus, Harvard law professor and Civil Rights expert Dr. Lani Guinier will speak on “Rethinking Race and Class: A New Vision of Social Justice” as part of the Andrea Neves and Barton Evans Social Justice Lecture Series. In her presentation, Dr. Guinier will challenge conventional thinking on issues of race and class, drawing on the comparison of the canary’s role in mining; she focuses on the ways that those who have been excluded (based on race or class) are like the canary in the mines: their very vulnerability signals problems with the larger atmosphere affecting us all. Dr. Guinier’s ideology is based on the book she co-authored with Gerald Torres, The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy.
In 1998, Lani Guinier became the first black woman to be appointed to a tenured professorship at Harvard Law School. Before joining the faculty at Harvard, she was a tenured professor for ten years at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. During the 1980s, she was head of the voting rights project at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and served in the Civil Rights Division during the Carter administration as special assistant to then-Assistant Attorney General Drew S. Days. Guinier came to public attention when she was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1993 to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, only to have her name withdrawn without a confirmation hearing. Guinier turned that incident into a powerful personal and political memoir, Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice. Dean of Yale Law School, Anthony Kronman, calls Lift Every Voice a, "moving personal testimony, a story of dignity and principle and hope, from which every reader can take heart."
While a member of the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Guinier investigated the experience of women in law school, leading to the publication of a book, Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School and Institutional Change. She and her co-authors found that women were not graduating with top honors, although women and men came to the school with virtually identical credentials. The author of many articles and op-ed pieces on democratic theory, political representation, educational equity, and issues of race and gender, Guinier has written, The Tyranny of the Majority (Free Press, 1994), about issues of political representation and, Who’s Qualified? (Beacon Press, 2001), written with Susan Sturm about moving beyond affirmative action to reconsider the ways in which colleges admit all students.
A graduate of Radcliffe College of Harvard University and Yale Law School, Guinier has received numerous awards, including the 1995 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession; the Champion of Democracy Award from the National Women's Political Caucus; the Rosa Parks Award from the American Association for Affirmative Action; the Harvey Levin Teaching Award, given to her by the 1994 graduating class at the University of Pennsylvania; and the 2002 Sacks-Freund Teaching Award from Harvard Law School. She is the recipient of eight honorary degrees from schools which include Smith College, Spelman College, Swarthmore College, and the University of the District of Columbia.
This special evening is free for Sonoma State University students, staff and faculty and only $10 for the general public. For tickets please call 707-664-2382 or visit the Sonoma Student Union front desk.
This lecture is brought to you by the Andrea Neves and Barton Evans Social Justice Lecture Series, Center for Culture, Gender & Sexuality, Heritage Lecture Series, Instructionally Related Activities, Associated Students, School Of Education, School of Social Sciences, Associated Students and Sonoma Student Union.
