Summer 2011: 'Disparate Opportunity in America: The Ongoing Struggle for Equal Rights'

The UAA Justice Center and American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska have come together to present a free public lecture, "Disparate Opportunity in America: The Ongoing Struggle for Equal Rights" on Thursday, July 14 at 7 p.m. in the Wendy Williamson Auditorium.

Anthony Romero, National Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, will address the long and still incomplete quest for equal rights and opportunity in America, and the continuing challenges faced by minority and underprivileged communities a half century after the Civil Rights Acts and War on Poverty of the 1960s.

Anthony Romero led the national Safe and Free campaign to protect basic freedoms following the 9/11 attacks, achieving court victories on the USA Patriot Act, uncovering thousands of pages of documents detailing the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, and filing the first successful legal challenge to the Bush administration's NSA spying program. Romero has been named one of Time magazine's "Most Influential Hispanics in America," and is a frequent media commentator, including appearing on the Colbert Report. In 2007, Romero and co-author and NPR correspondent Dina Temple-Raston published In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror.

A Q&A session and reception will follow the public lecture. This event is free and open to the public, and free parking is available. For more information, email akclu@akclu.org or call (907) 258-0044.