Past Event

David Cole: Is the Commander-in-Chief Subject to the Rule of Law?

The Public Square at the IHC is proud to co-sponsor along with the University of Chicago Human Rights Program the Spring Quarter Distinguished Lecturer: David Cole.

David Cole will discuss torture, spying, and detention in the War on Terror. The discussion will be moderated by Susan Gzesh, Director of the Human Rights program.

David Cole is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, a volunteer staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, and a commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. A graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School, he clerked for Judge Arlin Adams on the Third Circuit. He has litigated many First Amendment cases, including Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman, which extended First Amendment protection to flagburning.

New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis has called him “one of the country’s great legal voices for civil liberties today,” and former CIA Director James Woolsey has called David’s new book, Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terorism (2003), “the essential book in the field.” In 2004, Enemy Aliens was awarded an American Book Award and the Hefner First Amendment Prize.

David’s first book, No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System, was named Best Non-Fiction Book of 1999 by the Boston Book Review, best book on an issue of national policy in 1999 by the American Political Science Association, and awarded the Alpha Sigma Nu prize from the Jesuit Honor Society in 2001.

He has received numerous awards for his human rights and public interest advocacy, including from the Society of American Law Teachers, the National Lawyers Guild, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, the ABA Section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the American Muslim Council, and Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.

Reservations are NOT required for this free event.

Seating is on a first come, first served basis.

Refreshments will be served.

This event is part of the World Beyond the Headlines series.

For more information please contact, Maureen Loughan at (773) 834-0957 or email human-rights@uchicago.edu.