Carleton College will open its spring term with a convocation presentation by Greg Lukianoff, a constitutional attorney and president/CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), an organization that defends free speech and academic freedom on college campuses. Lukianoff will present “From Freedom Of Speech to Freedom From Speech: Defending the Marketplace of Ideas on American College Campuses,” focused on the importance of defending freedom of expression in academic environments.
Lukianoff will speak on Friday, April 1 from 10:50 to 11:50 a.m. in the Carleton Skinner Memorial Chapel. Carleton convocations are also recorded and archived for online viewing at go.carleton.edu/convo/.
FIRE (thefire.org) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, freedom of expression, academic freedom, due process, and rights of conscience at our nation’s colleges and universities. 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.
Lukianoff is the author of “Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate and Freedom From Speech” (Encounter Books, 2014, as well as a co-author of The Atlantic’s September 2015 cover story, “The Coddling of the American Mind.” He has been published in the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, TIME, The Boston Globe, Forbes, Reason, and numerous other publications. He is a regular columnist for The Huffington Post and frequently appears on TV shows and radio programs, including the “CBS Evening News,” "The Today Show,” and NPR’s “Radio Times.”
Lukianoff received the 2008 Playboy Foundation Freedom of Expression Award and the 2010 Ford Hall Forum’s Louis P. and Evelyn Smith First Amendment Award on behalf of FIRE. He is a graduate of American University and of Stanford Law School, where he focused on First Amendment and Constitutional Law. Before joining FIRE, he practiced law and interned at the ACLU in California.
This event is sponsored by the Office of College Communications. For more information, including disability accommodations, call (507) 222-4308. The Skinner Memorial Chapel is located at First and College Streets in Northfield.
