[act-ma] 3/18: FIRE honored with the 2010 First Amendment Award by Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University

[Mary Curtin]

FORD HALL FORUM
AT SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY

presents the
2010 First Amendment Award

honoring the
FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS IN EDUCATION
(FIRE)

with
Greg Lukianoff, Steven Pinker,
and Harvey Silverglate

Thursday, March 18, at 6:30-8:00 pm
C. Walsh Theatre, Suffolk University

public discussion moderated by
Judge Nancy Gertner

(Boston, MA) Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University presents Greg Lukianoff,
Steven Pinker, and Harvey Silverglate of FIRE (Foundation for Individual
Rights in Education) with the 2010 First Amendment Award; public discussion
moderated by Judge Nancy Gertner.  Thursday, March 18, at 6:30-8:00 pm.
Admission is free and open to all.  C. Walsh Theatre, Suffolk University, 55
Temple Street, Boston, MA.  Wheelchair accessible and conveniently located
near the Park Street stop on the MBTA.  For more information, call the Ford
Hall Forum at 617-557-2007 or visit www.fordhallforum.org
<http://www.fordhallforum.org/> .

Ford Hall Forum is proud to present this year's Louis P. and Evelyn Smith
First Amendment Award to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
(FIRE), an organization dedicated to defending and sustaining individual
rights at America's colleges and universities.  Greg Lukianoff, President of
FIRE, Steven Pinker, bestselling author and FIRE Advisory Board member, and
Harvey Silverglate, civil liberties lawyer and FIRE Co-Founder, join
moderator Judge Nancy Gertner of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts to
discuss their organization's work and what freedom of speech means today.

For the past 29 years, the Ford Hall Forum's Louis P. and Evelyn Smith First
Amendment Award has honored individuals or organizations that demonstrate
extraordinary commitment to promoting and facilitating the thoughtful
exercise of our right to freedom of expression.  Previous First Amendment
Award recipients include journalist Gwen Ifill, civil rights activist Rosa
Parks, musician and political activist Pete Seeger, and founder of CNN Ted
Turner.  More information about the Forum's First Amendment Award is
available at www.fordhallforum.org/about/firstamendment.  More information
on the reception that will be held on March 18th just prior to the awards
ceremony can be found at
www.fordhallforum.org/uncategorized/2010-first-amendment-award-reception.

Further background information:

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)
The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's
colleges and universities.  These rights include freedom of speech, legal
equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience - the
essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity.  FIRE's core mission
is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of
concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and
about the means to preserve them.  (Source: www.thefire.org
<http://www.thefire.org/> )

Greg Lukianoff is President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in
Education (FIRE).  A graduate of American University and Stanford Law
School, where he focused on First Amendment and constitutional law, Greg has
published articles in The Stanford Technology Law Review, The Chronicle of
Higher Education, Fraternal Law, Inside Higher Ed, The Boston Globe, the New
York Post, and numerous other publications. He is a blogger for the
Huffington Post and served as a regular columnist for the Daily Journal of
Los Angeles and San Francisco. Greg is a frequent guest on local and
national syndicated radio programs, has represented FIRE on national
television shows-including CBS Evening News, The O'Reilly Factor, MSNBC's
Dr. Nancy, Glenn Beck, The Abrams Report, Hannity and Colmes, and Buchanan
and Press-and has testified before the U.S. Senate about free speech issues
on America's campuses.   (Source: www.thefire.org <http://www.thefire.org/>
)

Harvey Silverglate is the Co-Founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights
in Education (FIRE).  He served on the Board of the ACLU of Massachusetts
for over three decades, including two terms as Board president.  He is
council to Zalkind, Rodriguez, Lunt & Duncan LLP, a Boston law firm
specializing in criminal defense, civil liberties, and academic freedom and
student rights and has assisted students in trouble since 1969, when he
represented student anti-war protesters on trial.  A regular columnist for
The Boston Phoenix, Silverglate has published in The National Law Journal,
Inc. magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald,
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Harvard Law Review, The New York Times Book
Review, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties
Law Review, Media Studies Journal, Cato Journal, Wilson Quarterly, The
Chronicle of Higher Education, Reason magazine, and elsewhere.  Silverglate
is also the author of Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent
(2009) and co-author of The Shadow University (1998).  Silverglate was born
in New York (1942) and was educated at Bogota (N.J.) High School (1960),
Princeton University (1964), and Harvard Law School (1967).  He has taught
at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School (a public secondary school), the
University of Massachusetts College III (in Boston), and Harvard Law School.
(Source: www.thefire.org <http://www.thefire.org/> )

Steven Pinker is the Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family
Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. His research on visual
cognition and the psychology of language has won prizes from the National
Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, and the
American Psychological Association. He has also taught at Stanford and MIT.
Pinker has received six honorary doctorates, several teaching awards, and
numerous prizes for his books; The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works,
and The Blank Slate. His latest book is The Stuff of Thought: Language as a
Window into Human Nature, 2007.  Pinker is a graduate of McGill University
in Montreal, Canada and received his doctorate from Harvard University. He
currently Honorary President of the Canadian Psychological Association and
Chair on the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes
frequently for The New Republic, The New York Times, and other publications.
He has been named Humanist of the Year, and is listed in Foreign Policy and
Prospect magazine's "The World's Top 100 Public Intellectuals" and Time
magazine's "The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today." (Source:
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/)

Nancy Gertner is a Federal judge for the United States District Court for
the District of Massachusetts. Gertner was nominated to the seat by
President Bill Clinton and received her commission as confirmed by the
Senate in 1994. She received her B.A. from Barnard College, and her M.A. and
a J.D. from Yale University.  Prior to her appointment, she was in private
practice in Boston, Massachusetts, and was well known for her work as a
criminal defense and civil rights lawyer. She served as an instructor at
Boston University School of Law and a visiting Professor at Harvard Law
School.  Gertner is celebrated as the co-author of The Law of Juries (1997)
and the only Massachusetts judge to post to a personal blog on the subject
of law.  (Sources: www.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=837,
www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/convictions/archive/2008/03/17/introduction.aspx)

Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University
The Ford Hall Forum is the nation's oldest free public lecture series.  The
Forum promotes freedom of speech and fosters an informed and effective
citizenry through public presentation of lectures, debates, and discussions.
Its events illuminate the key issues facing our society, by bringing to its
podium knowledgeable and thought-provoking speakers from a broad range of
perspectives.  These individuals speak in person, for free, and in settings
that encourage frank and open debate.

The Forum began in 1908 as a series of Sunday evening public meetings held
at the Ford Hall, which once stood on Beacon Hill in Boston. While the
original building no longer exists, the public conversations have continued
throughout the Boston area with the generous support of foundations,
corporations, academic institutions, and individuals.  In its 102nd year of
programming, the Forum continues to build upon its new partnership with the
Suffolk University College of Arts & Sciences. Suffolk is now housing the
Forum's administrative offices just a block away from where the original
Ford Hall once stood.

Ford Hall Forum programs are made possible through the generous
contributions from individual members as well as corporations and
foundations, including The Boston Foundation, The Boston Public Library,
Citizens Bank, Boston Private Bank & Trust Company, CBT Architects, Digitas,
The Fred and Marty Corneel Fund, Fidelity Investment, Helen Rees Literary
Agency, Houghton Chemical Corporation, Iron Mountain, Jackson & Company,
Levine, Katz, Nannis + Solomon, PC, Louise Farrell Studios, The Lowell
Institute, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Nellie Mae Education Foundation,
The Pfizer Foundation, Plymouth Rock Assurance Corporation, Prince, Lobel,
Glovsky & Tye LLP, Suffolk University, The WAND Education Foundation, WBUR,
and the WGBH Forum Network.

For more information on the Ford Hall Forum, visit www.fordhallforum.org.
Information about Suffolk University's partnership with the Ford Hall Forum
can be obtained by contacting Mariellen Norris, (617) 573-8450,
mnorris at suffolk.edu.

Coming up next at Ford Hall Forum:
Mitt Romney with Jeff Jacoby
No Apology: The Case for American Greatness
Thursday, April 8, 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Rabb Auditorium, Boston Public Library
Businessman and former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney joins moderator
Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe columnist, to explore why American strength is
essential - not just for our own well-being, but for the world - and how we
can move America back to a position of political and economic power.
 

### 



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