Social Justice Lecture Series

In fall 2013, Stetson University launched a new lecture series focused on social justice to explore issues central to our mission and values -- those that speak to human freedom, personal and social responsibility, the connections we have with each other, and the obligations that flow from our shared humanity.

Spring 2019 Lecture - Tuesday, March 19

Surviving Criminal Justice in America
A Talk by Anthony Ray Hinton
Main Lecture at 7 p.m. in the Stetson Room, Carlton Union Building (CUB)

Anthony Ray Hinton, death row exoneree, will share his story of wrongful conviction, survival on Alabama's death row, and decades-long journey to exoneration and freedom. In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was convicted of the unsolved murders of two fast-food restaurant managers based on the testimony of ballistics experts for the State who claimed that the crime bullets came from a dusty revolver found in Mr. Hinton's mother’s closet. Without the benefit of a competent expert to challenge the State’s ballistics experts, an all-white jury convicted Mr. Hinton and he was sentenced to death. After years of petitioning to have the revolver re-analyzed, three independent experts concluded that the bullets could not have been fired from that revolver and that they could not even have all been fired from a single gun. Mr. Hinton is now free after 30 years and will join us to share his story and discuss the changes that need to be made to prevent these types of injustices from happening to other innocent people.

Past lecturers

Peter Edelman -- lawyer, policymaker and law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he is faculty director of the Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy

Susan Rankin, Ph.D. -- founding member of the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals, which advocates for LGBT people on college campuses

Kevin Quashie, Ph.D. -- Afro-American Studies professor at Smith College and author of The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture

Patrick Davis -- alumnus, CEO of Davis Brand Capital and Co-Founder of StandUp Foundation, the world's first anti-bullying foundation

Ibram X. Kendi, Ph.D. -- New York Times best-selling author and award-winning historian

Tim Wu -- developer of the Net Neutrality Theory