Yale Law Professor To Deliver Parrish Lecture Jan. 25
Yale University law professor Stephen L. Carter, recognized by TIME magazine as one of the 50 leaders of the next century, will deliver the 2001 Emmy Parrish Lecture in American Studies at 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25, in the fifth floor Cashion Academic Center on the Baylor campus.
Carter, whose work is informed by his faith and experience as well as scholarship, will speak on "The Role of Civility and Religion in Vocation" and "Civil Engagement and the Nature of Voting." The lectures are free and open to the public.
An acclaimed author, teacher and much sought-after public speaker, Carter is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School, now serving Yale as The William Nelson Cromwell professor of law. He served as law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and was appointed by President Bush to the National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal.
"Stephen Carter will continue the Parrish Lecture theme of inviting speakers who research and publish in the area of how public life and private values, such as civility, can be interwoven," said Dr. Donald E. Greco, assistant professor of political science and director of the American Studies Program.
Carter's books include Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby; Civility: Manners, Morals and the Etiquette of Democracy, where he argues that civility is disintegrating because people have forgotten the obligations owed one another and are consumed with self-indulgence; Integrity, written with his children in mind and praised by such leaders as John Cardinal O'Conner and Children's Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman; The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion; and God's Name in Vain: How Religion Should and Should Not Be Involved in Politics, in which he illustrates ways that religion and politics do and do not mesh well and ways that spiritual perspectives might make vital contributions to national debate.
"Professor Carter argues that religious values should not be disassociated from the workplace and cannot be disassociated from the law or from politics. In The Culture of Disbelief, he advocates the maintenance of the separation of church and state," Greco said. "How can moral judgments and religious concerns be separated from our political life and from government decisions? These are the things he thinks, writes, speaks, and cares about."
In addition to the recognition he received from TIME, Carter was referred to by The New York Times as "one of the nation's leading public intellectuals."
The Emmy Parrish Lecture in American Studies fund was established in 1991 by retired Baylor vice president for development Tom Z. Parrish to honor his wife, Emmy. The fund, and lecture series it supports, recognizes the long friendship and mutual respect between Tom Parrish and the late E. Hudson Long, distinguished professor of English at Baylor, whose life of scholarship inspired identifying the lecture series with the American Studies program.
For more information about the Parrish Lecture, contact Greco at (254) 710-6043.