Dreyfous Lecture on Oct. 16 features sex equality legal expert Catharine MacKinnon

WHAT: The Dreyfous Lecture on Civil Liberties and Human Rights: “Butterfly Politics: A Theory of Social Change Through Legal Practice.” Book signing available after the lecture.  WHO: Legal scholar and author Catharine A. MacKinnon, the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. WHEN: Monday, October 16, 2017 at 4:30 p.m. WHERE: Room 110, Weinmann Hall at Tulane University Law School, 6328 Freret Street, New Orleans 70118. Reception to follow in the Marian Mayer Berkett Multipurpose Room About Catharine A. MacKinnonCatharine A. MacKinnon is Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (long-term). She holds a B.A. from Smith College, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and a Ph.D. in political science from Yale, specializing in equality issues, especially sex equality, under international and domestic (including comparative, constitutional, and criminal) law and in political theory.  Professor MacKinnon pioneered the legal claim for sexual harassment and, with Andrea Dworkin, created ordinances recognizing pornography as a civil rights violation and proposed the Swedish model for abolishing prostitution. The Supreme Court of Canada has largely accepted her approaches to equality, pornography, and hate speech, which have been influential internationally as well. Representing Bosnian women survivors of Serbian genocidal sexual atrocities, she won with co-counsel a damage award of $745 million in August 2000 in Kadic v. Karadzic under the Alien Tort Act, the first legal recognition of rape as an act of genocide.About the Dreyfous LectureThe George Abel and Mathilde Schwab Dreyfous Lecture is dedicated to the study of civil liberties and human rights. It was established in 1965 to honor George Abel Dreyfous, the founder of the Louisiana Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union and a Southern pioneer and leader in the field of civil liberties. In 2003, the title of the lecture series was changed to honor both Mr. Dreyfous and his wife, Mathilde Schwab Dreyfous, a tireless community volunteer and activist who worked closely with her husband towards an end to segregation and discrimination against African-Americans.