1/7/07

Noted Author to Deliver Keynote Address at Chicago Campus King Day Celebration

Noted author, attorney, and Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree will be the featured speaker at Northwestern University's Chicago campus celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.

Northwestern has suspended classes on Monday, Jan. 15, 2007, on both campuses for a University-wide, full day observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The Chicago campus celebration includes a series of panel discussions as well as Ogletree’s keynote address.

The keynote address will follow a commemoration presentation honoring King and musical performance at the School of Law, 357 E. Chicago Ave., in Thorne Auditorium at noon.

Charles Ogletree, the Jesse Climenko Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, is a prominent legal theorist who has made an international reputation by taking a hard look at complex issues of law and by working to secure the rights guaranteed by the Constitution for everyone equally under the law.

Ogletree is also the Founding and Executive Director of Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, named in honor of the visionary lawyer who spearheaded the litigation in Brown v. Board of Education.

Ogletree’s numerous books on legal topics include his most recent, From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America (co-edited with Austin Sarat of Amherst college), and his historical memoir, All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education.

Ogletree earned an MA and BA (with distinction) in Political Science from Stanford University, where he was Phi Beta Kappa. He also holds a JD from Harvard Law School, where he served as Special Projects Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights– Civil Liberties Law Review.

The full schedule of events is listed below. The Chicago campus celebration is presented by the DREAM committee in collaboration with the School of Law and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Law firms King and Spalding LLP and Wildman Harrold are sponsoring the events.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration
Northwestern University Chicago Campus

SCHEDULE
10:00–11:15 a.m.
Morning Panel
Rubloff 140 ( 375 East Chicago Avenue)

Generations Roundtable: Contemporary Relevance of the Civil Rights Movement

The purpose of this panel is to unite older civil rights activists and youth leaders to discuss the parallels between activism during the height of the civil rights era and contemporary activism, and convey lessons from previous generations to contemporary youth activists.

Noon – 1:30 p.m.
Thorne Auditorium ( 375 East Chicago Avenue)

Commemoration and Musical Performance
Keynote Speaker
Charles Ogletree, Professor at Harvard Law School and author, most recently of From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America

Book signing will follow.

1:45 – 2:45 p.m.
Afternoon Panel
Panel A — Hughes Auditorium (LurieMedicalResearchCenter, 303 East Superior Street)
Physicians as Activists
Panelists
Becky Belcore, RN
Dr. Quentin Young, MD
Dr. Michael Suk, MD, JD, MPH

Moderator
Katie Watson, JD, Lecturer in Medical Humanities and Bioethics, Feinberg School of Medicine

Panel B — Rubloff 140 (375 East Chicago Avenue)
Torture and How it Happens
Panelists
Flint Taylor, co-founder of the People’s Law Office
John Conroy, author of Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People

Moderator
Locke Bowman, Clinical Associate Professor of Law and Director, MacArthur Justice Center, Northwestern University

3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Afternoon Panel
Panel A — Hughes Auditorium (LurieMedicalResearchCenter, 303 East Superior Street)
Health Care Disparities: America’s Health Care Crisis and its Civil Rights Implications

Panelists
Dr. Eric Whitaker, Director, Illinois Department of Public Health
Dr. Steve Whitman, Director, Sinai Urban Health Institute
Dorothy Roberts, Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law, Northwestern University

Moderator
Dr. James Hill, MD

Panel B — Rubloff 140 (375 East Chicago Avenue)
The New Racism?: The Racial Aftermath of 9/11
Panelists
Dr. Ingrid Mattson, President, Islamic Society of North America
Michael Deutch, attorney for Muhammad Salah
Steven Salaita, author of Anti-Arab Racism in the USA

Moderator
Michael Deutch, attorney for Muhammad Salah

Reception to follow
Lurie Medical Research Center, 303 East Superior Street