ANN ARBOR—Anthony Lewis, two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient and New York Times columnist, will keynote “Freedom: The Seamless Web,” a symposium featuring prominent lawyers, journalists and historians celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom. The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place on Oct. 7, beginning at 8:30 a.m., in the Honigman Auditorium at the University of Michigan Law School.

The symposium includes three panels, a Michigan Theater screening of the documentary, “Keeping in Mind,” and the introduction of a new book, “Unfettered Expression: Freedom in American Intellectual Life.” (A complete program outline is attached.) The annual lecture is named for three U-M faculty members—Chandler Davis, Clement Markert and Mark Nickerson—who in 1954 were called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. All invoked constitutional rights and refused to answer questions about their political associations. The three were suspended from the University with subsequent hearings and committee actions resulting in the reinstatement of Markert, an assistant professor who eventually gained tenure, and the dismissal of Davis, an instructor, and Nickerson, a tenured associate professor.

Davis, the only one of the three now living, will make comments as part of the opening of the symposium. Markert and Nickerson will be represented by a daughter and a son, respectively.

“Keeping in Mind,” a documentary based on the treatment of Davis, Markert and Nickerson, was originally produced by then-College of Literature, Science, and the Arts student Adam Kulakow and first shown
All three professors were in the audience for the 1989 premier. Another audience member proposed after the showing that the University make amends for its treatment of the professors in 1955. In November 1990, the faculty Senate Assembly passed a resolution that regretted “the failure of the University Community to protect the values of intellectual freedom” and established the Senate Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom.

Peggie Hollingsworth, president of the Academic Freedom Lecture Fund and former chair (1990-91) of the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs (SACUA), explains the expansion of the 10th anniversary lecture into a symposium, saying, “we wanted to provide additional honor and recognition to these scholars, two of whom are now deceased, by bringing together some of the most preeminent speakers in the field in one place at one time.”

Hollingsworth and current SACUA Chair Jacqueline Lawson will officially open the symposium. Lawson is an associate professor of English and of communications at U-M-Dearborn.

U-M President Lee C. Bollinger will open the afternoon session. He is a professor of law and a nationally recognized expert on the First Amendment.

The first Academic Freedom panel, “Silencing Voices,” will be moderated by Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union. Ellen W. Shrecker and Roger W. Wilkins will complete the panel.

In addition to her presidency of the ACLU, Strossen is a professor of law at New York Law School and the author of “Defending Pornography.” Shrecker, professor of American history at Yeshiva University, is the editor of “Academe,” the journal of the American Association of University Professors. Wilkins, the Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History and American Culture at George Mason University, is a former U.S. assistant attorney general and a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

The second panel, “Scientific Evidence: Junk or Cutting Edge Science,” will have as its moderator American Scientist editor Rosalind Reid. Barry J. Nace and Joseph Sanders will join her.

Nace, senior partner at Paulson and Nace, Washington, D.C., is a former president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. Sanders, the A.A. White Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center, teaches law and social science, as well as products liability, scientific evidence and torts.

“Constructive Dialogues on Thorny Issues” will be moderated by Robert O’Neil, founding director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. O’Neil also is a former president of the University of Virginia and the University of Wisconsin. Joining O’Neil are Edward Gramlich and Eugene Roberts Jr.

Gramlich is a governor of the Federal Reserve System and former dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and professor of economics and public policy at U-M. Roberts, professor of journalism at the University of Maryland at College Park, is a former managing editor of the New York Times.

[Full agenda]

“Unfettered Expression: Freedom in American Intellectual Life,” edited by Hollingsworth with a foreword by David Halberstam, is a compilation of the nine previous Academic Freedom Lectures. It will be available at the symposium, at the Michigan Theater and at local bookstores.

The major sponsors of the symposium are the AFLF, the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the U-M Office of the President.

Anthony LewisLee C. BollingerNadine StrossenStrossenAmerican ScientistAssociation of Trial Lawyers of AmericaRobert O’Neil