Spectrum - Volume 17 Issue 20 February 16, 1995 - Guinier to headline conference

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Guinier to headline conference

Spectrum Volume 17 Issue 20 - February 16, 1995

Civil rights lawyer and professor Lani Guinier will be the keynote speaker at Virginia Tech's Black History Month celebration. She will headline a day-long program on campus climate Wednesday, Feb. 22.

Guinier will speak at 7:30 p.m. in Colonial Hall in Squires Student Center. Her talk, "Why We Need a National Conversation on Race," is free and open to the public.

The address will cap a day-long program on campus climate sponsored by President Paul Torgersen's office. It begins at 9:30 a.m. in the Squires Brush Mountain Room with a faculty panel discussion on racism and will be followed by a student panel discussion on the same topic from 1:30 until 3:30 p.m.

Guinier was the subject of national attention in 1993 when President Bill Clinton first nominated and then withdrew her name for consideration as assistant attorney general for civil rights. The Guinier nomination was mired in controversy over her writings in legal journals on voter representation. Despite the headline-garnering incident, she has remained active in national politics. She has continued to publish articles in the New York Times, Boston Globe , and in the Washington Post .

Guinier is currently a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. A graduate of Radcliffe College and Yale University Law School, Guinier served as assistant counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. She held the position of special assistant to the Justice Department's civil rights division during President Jimmy Carter's administration.

Guinier has delivered speeches at the University of Massachusetts, Duke University, the Association of Black AT&T employees, Florida A & M, Medgar Evers College, Harvard Law School, Harvard Kennedy School, American Society of Newspaper Editors, and at many other speaking engagements. She has been a guest on "This Week With David Brinkley," "Face The Nation," "Good Morning America," and "Nightline."

For more information on Guinier's talk or other Black History Month activities, call 1-3787.