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Distributed October 21, 2004
Contact Mary Jo Curtis

First Amendment expert and author Geoffrey Stone will speak on “Civil Liberties in Wartime” Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004, at 6 p.m. in Starr Auditorium, MacMillan Hall. This lecture is free and open to the public.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Noted First Amendment expert and author Geoffrey Stone will speak on “Civil Liberties in Wartime” Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004, at 6 p.m. in Starr Auditorium at MacMillan Hall.

Stone, the Harry Kalven Jr. Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, is the author of the new book Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime (W.W. Norton, October 2004), which will be available for sale and signing before the lecture, beginning at 5 p.m. In Perilous Times, Stone traces how the First Amendment and other civil liberties have been compromised in America during wartime, from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the Vietnam War and Bush era. The book has been praised for its timeliness, insight and relevance to today’s war on terror; Watergate journalist and author Bob Woodward called it “a lively, masterful history – and reminder – of the essential role of the First Amendment during the stresses of war.”

During the Supreme Court’s 1972 term, Stone served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. He joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1973 and served as dean of the University of Chicago Law School from 1987 to 1994, as well as provost of the University of Chicago from 1994 to 2002. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Law Institute and, since 1991, an editor of the Supreme Court Review.

In addition to his teaching, administrative and scholarly activities, Stone has participated in a variety of constitutional cases over the years. He worked with the ACLU in representing the Nazi Party in the Skokie controversy of the 1970s and in representing President Bill Clinton before the Supreme Court in the Paula Jones case in the 1990s. He also represented Fred Korematsu, one of 120,000 individuals of Japanese descent interned by the U.S. government during World War II and was a “friend of the court” in the 2004 Guantanamo Bay case before the Supreme Court of the United States.

This event is free, and the public is welcome. The lecture will be followed by a public reception. MacMillan Hall is located at 167 Thayer St. For more information, call (401) 863-2474.

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