NEWS

By LYNNE DEGITZ
Office for Minority Affairs

CHAPEL HILL -- Legal scholars Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres will be keynote speakers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Saturday (March 27) in a symposium marking the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The free public symposium, "The Quest for Equality in Education, Then, Now and Tomorrow: Brown v. Board of Education 50 Years Later," will be from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the film auditorium of the Frank Porter Graham Student Union off South Road.

Guinier and Torres will speak from 2:30-4:30 p.m., then sign copies of their book, "The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy," at a reception from 4:30-6 p.m.

Guinier came to public attention when she was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1993 to head the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice, but her name was withdrawn without a confirmation hearing. She turned that incident into a personal and political memoir, "Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice."

Also during Clinton’s presidency, Torres was Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the justice department’s environment and natural resources division and counsel to then-U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. He is a leading figure in critical race theory and an expert in agricultural and environmental law.

Publisher's Weekly described "The Miner's Canary" (Harvard University Press, 2002) as "one of the most provocative and challenging books on race produced in years." The book likens the experience of people of color to that of the miner’s warning canary, the former signaling the presence of larger institutional inequities.

Dr. Archie Ervin, assistant to the chancellor and minority affairs director at UNC, called Brown v. Board a part of history that is important for Americans understand and revisit today.

"It was a pivotal decision, in that it served not only as an official end to legalized segregation in public education, but it also became the basis of the removal of discrimination in other areas of life, such as voting and employment," he said. "This symposium will explore a variety of issues and challenges facing the American quest for equality of opportunity and equity today.

"Some people are not as privileged as others in terms of accessing the American dream. We still have disparities in educational attainment, economic opportunity, and other things that really help define us as a nation. It’s important to continue these discussions in our journey of becoming."

The symposium also will feature oral histories of school desegregation in the Chapel Hill area, shared by longtime community leader Rebecca Clark, an advocate for UNC housekeepers in the 1940s, and Dan Pollitt, UNC Kenan professor of law emeritus, from 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. UNC history professors Dr. Genna Rae McNeil and Dr. Bill Ferris will facilitate the discussion.

After lunch, from 12:45-2:15 p.m., students will join Julius Chambers, director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights, and Guinier in examining the impact of the Brown decision on contemporary educational experiences.

In 1998, Guinier became the first black woman to be appointed to a tenured professorship at Harvard Law School. Previously, she was a tenured professor for 10 years at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. During the 1980s, she headed the voting rights project at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Guinier worked in the civil rights division of the Justice Department during the Carter administration as special assistant to then-Assistant Attorney General Drew S. Days. She has written many articles and op-ed pieces on democratic theory, political representation, educational equity and issues of race and gender.

Her other books are "The Tyranny of the Majority" (Free Press, 1994), about issues of political representation, and, with Susan Sturm, "Who's Qualified?" (Beacon Press, 2001), about moving beyond affirmative action to reconsider ways in which colleges admit students.

In a recent piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Guinier argued that colleges should practice "confirmative action," meaning that all students should be evaluated and educated to confirm the sacred, democratic mission of higher learning.

Torres is H.O. Head Centennial Professor in real property law at the University of Texas Law School. He previously taught at the University of Minnesota Law School in 1993. He is a member of the Board of the Environmental Law Institute and the National Petroleum Council and formerly served on EPA's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

Torres has been a visiting professor at Stanford and Harvard law schools and is a member of the American Law Institute.

Symposium sponsors at UNC are the Office for Minority Affairs, offices of the chancellor and the provost, the Institute of African American Research, the Center for Civil Rights, the Campus Y, the Division of Student Affairs, the Department of Housing and Residential Education, the Carolina Union Activities Board, the Carolina Union, the Black Student Movement, the executive branch of Student Government, the School of Law, the Carolina Women's Center and the Center for Teaching and Learning. The Chapel Hill Museum also is a sponsor.

For a detailed schedule, visit http://www.unc.edu/minorityaffairs/brown-march27.html.  Pre-registration is requested for lunch participants. Contact Dr. Cookie Newsom at newsom@email.unc.edu to reserve a box lunch. For information, call the Office for Minority Affairs at 919-962-6962.

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Contact: Lynne Degitz, 919-843-6085 degitz@unc.edu

News Services contact: L.J. Toler, 919-962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu