DATE: 4 p.m., Nov. 9, 2009.

EVENT: Columbia Law School professor Philip Hamburger will present the 2009 Davis, Markert, Nickerson lecture at the University of Michigan. His lecture is titled “Galileo’s Ghost?Seventeenth-Century Censorship in Twenty-First-Century America.”

Hamburger, who is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, is a distinguished legal historian and a scholar of constitutional law. He is known for his work on the First Amendment–both on religious liberty and on freedom of speech.

Before moving to Columbia, he was the John P. Wilson Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, where he was also director of the Bigelow Program and the Legal History Program. He also has taught at law schools at George Washington University, University of Connecticut, University of Virginia and Northwestern University.

Hamburger received his Bachelor of Arts in history (summa cum laude) from Princeton University and his law degree from the Yale University Law School. Early in his career, he was an associate at the law firm of Schnader, Harrison, Segal and Lewis in Philadelphia.

His publications include Separation of Church and State (Harvard Univ. Press 2002); “Getting Permission,” Columbia Law Review (2007); “Religious Liberty in Philadelphia,” Emory Law Journal (2005); “More is Less,” Virginia Law Review (2004).

Among his awards are the Colby Townsend Prize (Yale Law School, 1982), the Sutherland Prize (American Society of Legal History, 1991 and 1995), and the Henry Paolucci/Walter Bagehot Book Award (2009) for his recent book, Law and Judicial Duty.

PLACE: Honigman Auditorium, 100 Hutchins Hall, U-M Law School. Central Campus map: http://www.umich.edu/news/Maps/ccamp.html

CONTACT: Peggie Hollingsworth or Linda Harbison, (734) 764-0303.

SPONSORS: The Academic Freedom Lecture Fund, American Association of University Professors Michigan Conference and University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Chapter, U-M Office of the President, U-M Office of the Provost, U-M Office of the Vice President for Communications, U-M Law School and the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs.

WEB: For information about the Lecture Fund, visithttp://www.umich.edu/~aflf