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 2018 Lecture - Wednesday, February 28

"Is the First Amendment Obsolete?"
A Lecture/Discussion by Tim Wu
Developer of the Net Neutrality Theory
Main Lecture at 7 p.m. in Lee Chapel

Tim Wu is an author, policy advocate, and professor at Columbia Law School and director of the Poliak Center for the study of First Amendment Issues at Columbia Journalism School. Wu's best-known work is the development of Net Neutrality theory, but he also writes about private power, free speech, copyright, and antitrust. In 2014, he ran as the progressive Democrat candidate for lieutenant governor of New York. His book The Master Switch (2010) has won wide recognition and various awards.

Wu worked at the Federal Trade Commission during the first term of the Obama administration, and has also worked as Chair of Media reform group Free Press, as a fellow at Google, and worked for Riverstone Networks in the telecommunications industry. He was a law clerk for Judge Richard Posner and Justice Stephen Breyer. He graduated from McGill University (B.Sc.), and Harvard Law School.

Wu is a contributing writer at NewYorker.com and a former contributing editor at The New Republic. In 2006, Scientific American named him one of 50 leaders in science and technology; in 2007, 01238 Magazine listed him as one of Harvard's 100 most influential graduates; in 2013, National Law Journal included him in "America's 100 Most Influential Lawyers"; and in 2014 and 2015, he was named to the "Politico 50." He formerly wrote for Slate, where he won the Lowell Thomas Gold medal for Travel Journalism. In 2015, he was appointed to the Executive Staff of the Office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman as a senior enforcement counsel and special advisor. He lives in New York. For more information on this speaker, please visit www.prhspeakers.com. (Photo credit: Mikiko Hayashi)

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