Hugo L. Black Lecture on Freedom of Expression: March 30, 2023, 7pm

"The First Amendment Right of Academic Freedom"

Join us to hear from a leading voice on the topic of freedom of speech in America, University of Texas at Austin School of Law Professor David Rabban ’71.

Presented by The Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life and moderated by Dean Demetrius Eudell.

Thursday, March 30, 2023, 7:00 pm, ET

Daniel Family Commons, and a Zoom Webinar

Usdan University Center, 45 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown, CT

Reception preceding the event at 6:00 pm, ET

Poster for David Rabban  

 

This annual lecture is designed to bring to the Wesleyan Campus, public figures and scholars with experience and expertise in matters related to the First Amendment and freedom of expression. This lecture is endowed by Leonard S. Halpert ’44 (1922–2017), who believed that the First Amendment to the US Constitution is the basis upon which we enjoy all other Civil Rights. This lecture is named in honor of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black. 

 

David Rabban, '71, Bio

Professor David Rabban, Wesleyan class of 1971, served as counsel to the American Association of University Professors for several years before joining the Texas faculty in 1983. He served as General Counsel of the AAUP from 1998 to 2006 and Chair of its Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure from 2006 to 2012. His teaching and research focus on free speech, higher education and the law, and American legal history. He is best known for his path-breaking work on free speech in American history. He is the author of Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, 1870- 1920 (Cambridge,1997) and Law's History: American Legal Thought and the Transatlantic Turn to History.  His many articles have appeared in Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review and elsewhere. He is currently working on a book about academic freedom and the First Amendment (Harvard University Press). 

 

Professor David Rabban’s teaching and research focus on free speech, higher education and the law, and American legal history. He is best known for his path-breaking work on free speech in American history. He is the author of Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, 1870- 1920 (Cambridge,1997) and Law's History: American Legal Thought and the Transatlantic Turn to History.  His many articles have appeared in Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review and elsewhere. He is currently working on a book about academic freedom and the First Amendment (Harvard University Press).

 

Hugo L. Black Lecturers 1991 - 2022

Keith Whittington                                                   

Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University

 

William Nelson

Bertrall Ross
Chancellor's Professor of Law
U.C. Berkeley Law

Jelani Cobb
IRA A. Lipman Professor of Journalism
Columbia University

A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals  for
the Third Circuit, Philadelphia

Rodney Smolla
Dean
University of Richmond Law School

Harry A. Blackmun
Justice
Supreme Court of the United States

Margaret Marshall
Chief Justice
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Anthony Lewis
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist,
The New York Times

Cass Sunstein
School of Law
University of Chicago

Nadine Strossen
President
American Civil Liberties Union

Patricia Williams
Professor of Law
Columbia University

Abner Mikva
Former Chief Judge, U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia

Laurence H. Tribe
Carl M. Loeb University Professor,
Harvard University

Norman Dorsen
Stokes Professor of Law,
NYU School of Law

Lawrence Lessig

Director, Edmond J. Safra Foundation
Center for Ethic
Professor, Harvard Law School

Patricia Wald
Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia

Jack M. Balkin
Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the
First Amendment
Yale Law School

Floyd Abrahms
William J. Brennan Visiting Professor of
First Amendment Law, Columbia University

Antonin Scalia
Associate Justice
Supreme Court of the United States

Kathleen Sullivan
Dean
Stanford Law School

Geoffrey R. Stone
Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor
University of Chicago Law School

Nat Hentoff
Award-winning author and journalist

Aharon Barak
President of the Israeli Supreme Court (Ret.),
IDC Herzliya

Lee C. Bollinger
President
Columbia University

Robert Post

Sol and Lillian Goldman Professor of Law
Dean, Yale Law School

Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director
American Civil Liberties Union

 

Stanley Fish

The Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University
Professor and Professor of Law
Florida International University

 

Linda Greenhouse
Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence
Joseph M. Goldstein Lecturer in Law
Yale Law School

 

John Finn
Professor Emeritus
Wesleyan University