37th Annual Silha Lecture
Inherit the Wind immortalized the Scopes “monkey trial” of 1925, one of the first to be called “the trial of the century.” That case involved Tennessee’s ban on teaching the theory of evolution in public schools – particularly a biology textbook that accepted it as established fact.
Contrary to the assumption that book bans are relics of the distant past, they have enjoyed a banner year in 2022 as the broader culture war sparks fierce battles across the country over purging books from schools, libraries, and even bookstores. What are the First Amendment implications of these hotly contested battles? And how do we, as a society, maintain a culture of free expression in highly polarized times?
This year’s Silha Lecturer is Robert Corn-Revere, a First Amendment expert and partner at Davis Wright Tremaine LLC in Washington, D.C., whose career as a free speech advocate has spanned nearly forty years. His latest book, The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder – The First Amendment and the Censor’s Dilemma, was released by Cambridge University Press at the end of 2021.
Free and open to the public
Cowles Auditorium, West Bank