Lani Guinier, the first Black woman professor to be tenured at Harvard Law School, will present her ideas on “Rethinking Race, Gender and Power” in The UCSB Women’s Center 25th Anniversary Lecture on Friday, September 29 at 4 p.m. in UCSB Campbell Hall. Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, copies of books by Guinier will be available for purchase and signing at a reception to be held immediately following the lecture.

A graduate of Yale Law School, Guinier had written extensively on civil rights issues and presented her forward-thinking approaches to ensuring participation for all in a democratic government long before she came to widespread public attention. Her forthright and carefully wrought arguments for civil rights prompted President Clinton, who had been her friend and classmate at Yale, to nominate her shortly after his inauguration in 1993 for the Department of Justice post of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. The nomination was seen as a way to follow through on his campaign pledges to bring civil rights issues to the forefront of public discussion and make them a priority in his presidency.

Soon after Guinier’s nomination, there followed a maelstrom of media and conservative political attacks on her ideas and plans. These were either completely manufactured or involved gross misinterpretations of her legal writings. Guinier was dubbed the “quota queen.” Soon after, Clinton withdrew her nomination and denied her the opportunity to defend her views before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The episode has been seen as a civil rights setback of major proportions.

Since that time, for both the actual content of her civil rights advocacy and for the grace and dignity with which she handled the nomination debacle, Guinier has been in high demand as a speaker and as a legal advocate. She has also written two books. In 1994, The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy was published. This book outlines in clear and less technical language than her legal writings her proposals for revamping voting practices to ensure fair and accurate representation for all in the governing process. The Boston Globe hailed the book for the way it “highlights the distortion of Guinier’s written record, clarifies and explains her creative approach to voting-rights problems and opens a crucial dialogue on race and democracy.”

Her 1998 book Life Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into A New Vision of Social Justice tells the inside story of what happened with her nomination and its subsequent withdrawal and uses the incident as a starting point for discussion of the past, present and future of civil rights in the United States. She also describes how her experience at the hands of the press, the White House and her congressional enemies has given her both a new voice and a renewed faith in the ongoing struggle for civil rights.

After her nomination experience and with enhanced dedication to the fight for civil rights, Guinier founded the group COMMONPLACE, a national non-profit center which seeks to connect citizens, communities and ideas, and RACETALKS, a project designed to create opportunities for multiracial problem solving and collaboration. Both groups are committed to developing new ways of learning where different styles of processing are seen as assets, not setbacks.

During the 1980s, Guinier was head of the Voting Rights program at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund where she litigated cases throughout the South. In 1988, she joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she co-authored the book Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law Schools and Institutional Change.

Lani Guinier was selected to present the UCSB Women’s Center’s 25th Anniversary Lecture because she is a scholar and activist of unparalleled stature in the field of civil rights. Since 1975 the UCSB Women’s Center has been a place where people work to understand the changing roles of women and men and to expand the educational, professional, and personal opportunities for women. The Women’s Center challenges sexism, racism, heterosexism, and classism, as well as other barriers that inhibit women’s inclusion and equal power by providing a climate in which women can celebrate and cultivate their common strengths as well as recognize their rich cultural and individual differences. In addition to presenting public events and weekly workgroups, the Women’s Center operates a library specializing in information about women and gender, the Rape Prevention Education Program, the Sexual Harassment Prevention Education Program and the Queer Resource Center. It provides a Re-Entry and Non-Traditional Student Lounge and four Netstations available for drop-in use.

This event is presented by the UCSB Women’s Center and UCSB Arts & Lectures and is sponsored by the UCSB Women’s Studies Program, Department of Sociology, Law & Society Program, Center for Black Studies and Education Program for Culture Awareness.

For more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Roman Baratiak at (805) 893-2080.