2017 Silha Lecture: "Making Media Law Great Again: The First Amendment in the Time of Trump"

Featuring David McCraw, Deputy General Counsel of The New York Times

In October 2016 New York Times’ deputy general David McCraw wrote a letter to Donald Trump’s attorney defending the right of The New York Times to publish a news story over which Trump had threatened a lawsuit.  The letter became an instant sensation, with more than two million people reading it on the Times website alone.

Despite apparently rising to fame overnight, however, McCraw had already compiled a record as one of the nation’s most prolific litigators of freedom-of-information cases.  The 15-years Times veteran has been the lawyer behind every major investigative story the paper has published in recent years, including three that won Pulitzer Prizes.  In 35 FOIA suits he has helped pry loose secret documents on topics ranging from drone strikes in Yemen to the U.S. government’s burgeoning surveillance program.

A graduate of the University of Illinois, Cornell University, and Albany Law School, David McCraw is an adjunct professor at NYU Law School.  In 2010, the New York City Bar awarded him its Cyrus Vance Award for his international pro bono work promoting free expression. 

McCraw will deliver the 32nd annual Silha Lecture on Monday, October 2, 2017.  His lecture, entitled, “Making Media Law Great Again: The First Amendment in the Time of Trump” will begin at 7:30 pm at Cowles Auditorium, located within the Humphrey School of Public Affairs on the University of Minnesota’s Twin City campus.  The lecture is free and open to the public; no reservations are needed.

For more about this event, click on any of the following links:
Video of the 32nd Annual Silha Lecture
Minnesota Public Radio's interview with David McCraw
Silha Bulletin story promoting the 32nd Annual Silha Lecture
Silha Bulletin story following the 32nd Annual Silha Lecture

Event Location

Cowles Auditorium, West Bank

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