"Academic Freedom after September 11th," conference set for Feb. 27 |
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25 February 2004 ATTENTION: Higher education reporters and editors |
Contact:
Media Relations
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WHAT
"Academic Freedom after September 11th," a daylong conference at the University of California, Berkeley, sponsored by the campus's Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
Some of the questions to be raised in this conference are: How has the academy as a whole, and Middle Eastern Studies, in particular, been affected by the transformations of post-9/11 America? How have students and faculty, especially those with academic or cultural ties to the Middle Eastern and Muslim states, fared under new legislation such as the Patriot Act?
Co-sponsors include UC Berkeley's Townsend Center for the Humanities, Human Rights Center and Department of History. The Berkeley ACLU also is a co-sponsor.
WHEN
9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Friday, Feb. 27.
WHERE
International House, Ida & Robert Sproul rooms, 2299 Piedmont Ave., Berkeley.
WHO
More than a dozen major scholars of academic freedom, civil rights and Middle Eastern studies will participate in the conference, including:
* Beshara Doumani, a UC Berkeley history professor and an expert in modern Middle Eastern history and the social history of the family in Palestine and Syria.
* Robert Post, a Yale University law professor, expert in constitutional law, and one of the nation's leading scholars on academic freedom. Post will deliver the keynote address.
* Joel Beinin, a Stanford University professor of Middle Eastern history, past president of the Middle East Studies Association and an editor of the national Middle East Research and Information Project.
* Amy Newhall, a University of Arizona professor and executive director of the university's Middle East Studies Association.
* Philippa Strum of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. Strum specializes in constitutional law and civil liberties.