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March 18, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NOTED LAW PROFESSOR AND
AUTHOR LANI GUINIER
TO DELIVER SMITH COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
Honorary degrees will be
awarded to six
NORTHAMPTON, Mass.-Pioneering law professor
and civil rights champion Lani Guinier will be the speaker at
Smith College's 124th commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 19.
Guinier, who received an honorary degree from Smith in 1999,
has degrees from Radcliffe College and Yale University Law School.
During the 1980s, she headed the Voting Rights Project of the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund, litigating cases throughout the South.
In 1988, she joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania
Law School, where she co-authored a book on women and legal education
titled "Becoming Gentlemen." In 1998, she became the
first black woman tenured professor at Harvard Law School.
Guinier is the author of a number of books, including "The
Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming
Democracy," "Who's Qualified?" and "Lift
Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback Into a New Vision
of Social Justice," an analysis of the civil rights movement
through the lens of her 1993 nomination by President Clinton,
later withdrawn, to be the first black woman to serve as assistant
attorney general for civil rights.
Prior to Guinier's address, six accomplished women will receive
honorary degrees. They are:
Brandeis University professor of social policy, law and women's
studies Anita Hill, author of "Speaking Truth to
Power," an account of her experience as a witness in the
confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas;
Theoretical physicist Shirley Ann
Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, former
chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the first
African-American woman to receive a doctorate from M.I.T.;
Former New Jersey state senator and
U.S. ambassador to New Zealand Anne Martindell, originally
enrolled in Smith College's Class of 1936 and scheduled to receive
her undergraduate degree from Smith at the May 19 ceremonies;
Leading elephant authority and advocate
Cynthia Moss, director of the Amboseli Elephant Research
Project in Kenya, Africa, a MacArthur foundation "genius
grant" recipient and a 1962 Smith graduate;
Columnist, critic and poet Katha
Pollitt, longtime contributor to The Nation and a writer
known for her sharp and provocative analyses of popular culture
and politics;
International champion of displaced
women Sima Wali, president and CEO of Refugee Women in
Development, Inc., and a key player in the establishment of the
current interim government-and women's role in it-in her native
Afghanistan.
Commencement will take place at 1:30
p.m. in the Quadrangle.
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