Lani Guinier, professor of law at Harvard Law School, will participate in the silent campus march then give the keynote speech in the Fieldhouse Arena on Monday, January 15. The silent march will begin at Zumberge Library at 1:45 p.m. The program, with a theme of "Honor the March and Inherit the Dream," will feature Guinier and the Voices of GVSU at 2:15 p.m.
In 1998, Guinier was the first black woman to be appointed to a tenured position at Harvard Law. Previously, she had taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, directed the NAACP's voting rights project and served the Carter administration in the Civil Rights Division. Guinier's name rose to national prominence in 1993 when President Bill Clinton nominated her as assistant attorney general for civil rights. Conservatives balked and Clinton withdrew her name without a confirmation hearing. Guinier wrote about that experience in a book, Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice, published in 1998.
While at the University of Pennsylvania, Guinier and another faculty member researched the experiences of women at the law school. Their efforts were published in 1997: Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School and Institutional Change. She has written four other books including The Tyranny of the Majority, a study of political representation, and Who's Qualified, about moving beyond affirmativ action in college admissions processes.
Guinier graduated from Radcliffe College and Yale Law School. She has received numerous awards, including the Champion of Democracy Award from the National Women's Political Caucus; the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the American Bar Association; and the Rosa Parks Award from the American Association of Affirmative Action.
She will also speak at the Martin Luther King Jr. Grand Rapids community celebration at 6:30 p.m. at Ford Fieldhouse on the campus of Grand Rapids Community College.
