First Amendment experts Rodney Smolla, Ari Cohn, and Bryan Fair will discuss free speech on college campuses on Tuesday, Oct. 3, at 7:30 p.m. in the Chapel. This panel discussion is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by the Government Department.
Smolla is the dean of Widener University Delaware Law School. He has written books on First Amendment issues including Deliberate Intent: A Lawyer Tells the True Story of Murder by the Book and Free Speech in an Open Society, the latter of which won the William O. Douglas Prize.
Cohn also concentrates on free speech issues. As director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), he advocates on behalf of students whose rights, including freedom of speech, have been violated. FIRE’s core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public about the threats to these rights on campuses.
Fair is a law professor at the University of Alabama and board member of the Southern Poverty Law Center. His research focuses on equality theory, and he is the author of Notes of a Racial Caste Baby: Colorblindness and the End of Affirmative Action.