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On Thursday, Nov. 1 at 7 p.m., the University of Maine will host a lecture by Nadine Strossen, President of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and law professor at New York University. Strossen is being brought to campus as part of the Division of Student Entertainment’s Guest Lecture Series.
Although Strossen is coming to UMaine as part of the “Guest Lecture Series,” according to her, “‘lecture’ is somewhat of a misnomer.” The event is titled “Conversations with Nadine Strossen,” and she intends to engage in open conversations with UMaine students on “any issue[s] of concern with them within the broad spectrum of civil liberties issues.”
Abtin Mehdizadegan, director of the Guest Lecture Series and Derek Mitchell, vice president of Student Entertainment – which also helps to coordinate the Guest Lecture Series – also emphasized the open-ended nature of the forum.
“She will cover what students want her to cover,” Mehdizadegan said. “I encourage the audience and classes to do a bit of research before they attend this lecture, because she will be able to provide a wealth of information on many student issues.”
The event is one that Mehdizadegan and Mitchell believe will be beneficial to all of the UMaine community. The Division of Student Entertainment has been interested in bringing Strossen to campus in the past, but was unable due to the “prohibitive” cost, according to Mitchell.
This semester, however, the situation allowed for Strossen to speak on campus for a lower cost, due to her travel arrangements coinciding with this event. Upon figuring this out, “Abtin decided to really go for it and I thought that was a great decision that we made,” Mitchell said.
When looking at speakers to bring to campus, “Nadine’s name jumped out at us – having a speaker of her stature visit campus and converse with students about current issues surrounding civil liberties could be a fantastic event that UMaine would greatly benefit from,” Mehdizadegan said.
The interaction between Strossen and the audience can be expected to be engaging, as issues around questions of civil liberties are particularly salient to colllege students.
“College students in general tend to have a high level of interest in civil liberties conflicts. They are fundamentally concerned about the right to free speech or free exercise of religion or prohibitions from unreasonable searches and seizures,” Brewer said.
Strossen’s positions and those of her organization tend to be controversial; according to her, by the nature of the ACLU, they “irritate everybody.” In keeping with one of her organization’s principles, freedom of speech, Strossen does not back down from, and in fact encourages, dissenting opinions.
“One of my pet peeves, by the way, is when the moderator says to the audience ‘You must ask questions, you may not make comments,’” Strossen said. Rather, she would prefer that audience members are allowed to make comments freely, even rant, provided she have the ability to respond. “I would certainly consider it a waste of my time to sort of preach to the converted.”
Another point which Strossen, Mitchell and Mehdizadegan are all in agreement on is that disagreement, which is to be expected at this event, will be a positive result, and that students have much to gain from exposing themselves to Strossen’s views.
“I hope that they’ll learn something new, that no matter what their preconceptions are, that they’ll gain something new, a new perspective,” Strossen said.
Strossen, who has headed the ACLU since 1991, is also an author. She wrote the 1995 book “Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights.” She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School in 1975, and has twice been named by the National Law Journal as one of “The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.”
