Lecture by top legal journalist set April 5

1:47 p.m., March 30, 2005--Jeffrey Rosen, a professor of law at George Washington University Law School and the legal affairs editor of The New Republic, will deliver the first annual Koford Lecture at UD at 3:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 5, in room 219 of the Trabant University Center. This new lecture series honors the late Kenneth J. Koford, former director of Legal Studies and professor in the Department of Economics.

The lecture, “Why the Courts Can’t Save Us,” is based on Rosen’s research for a forthcoming book on democracy and the U.S. Supreme Court. He argues that while the courts often are seen as a heroic protector for minority rights, they tend over time to follow the election returns--and that that's not a bad thing. Defending a vision of democratic constitutionalism, Rosen will review the challenges for liberals and conservatives during the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation battles to come.

The New York Times called Rosen’s first book, The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America, “the definitive text on privacy perils in the digital age.” His book, The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age, was named one of the best books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Monthly.

Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, summa cum laude; Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and Yale Law School. He has written essays and commentaries for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, National Public Radio and The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. The Chicago Tribune named Rosen one of the 10 best magazine journalists in America.

The lecture is presented by UD’s Legal Studies Program, cosponsored by the Department of Political Science and International Relations and supported by the Faculty Senate Committee on Cultural Activities and Public Events.

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