MEDIA ADVISORY

DATE: Tuesday, 4 p.m.-5:30 p.m. Sept. 11, 2012.

EVENT: How big is the current cultural, economic, and social divide? What is the role of government as inequality rises? What can be done to close the gap? Syndicated columnist Clarence Page will moderate this debate between Jared Bernstein and Charles Murray on the future of inequality in America. The event is free and open to the public.

Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, was the chief economist and economic advisor to Vice President Biden from 2009 to 2011. He also served as the executive director of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class and a member of President Obama’s economic team.

Charles Murray, W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is a political scientist, author and libertarian. He first came to national attention in 1984 with the publication of Losing Ground, which has been credited as the intellectual foundation for the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. His New York Times bestseller The Bell Curve (1994), coauthored with the late Richard J. Herrnstein, sparked controversy for its analysis of the role of IQ in shaping America’s class structure.

Clarence Page, syndicated columnist and editorial board member at the Chicago Tribune, is the winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. He is an inductee to the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame and the author of Showing My Color: Impolite Essays on Race and Identity (1996). He currently serves as a board member of the Knight Wallace Fellows at the University of Michigan.

MEDIA: An audio multbox will be provided.

LOCATION: Rackham Graduate School, Rackham Auditorium, 915 E. Washington Street, Ann Arbor. Map: https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&q=915+E.+Washington+Street,+Ann+Arbor,+MI+48109+