April 3, 2014 2014 Law Day Lecture Marks 50th Anniversaries of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts

The Law Library of Congress will present a Law Day 2014 lecture by Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution Center at 1 p.m. on Thursday, May 1, in the Mumford Room, located on the sixth floor of the Library of Congress James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public; tickets are not required.

This year’s national Law Day theme, “American Democracy and the Rule of Law: Why Every Vote Matters,” recognizes the impending 50th anniversaries of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Rosen is the president and chief executive officer of the National Constitution Center, a professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and the legal-affairs editor of The New Republic. He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he explores issues involving the future of technology and the U.S. Constitution. An award-winning journalist whose essays and commentaries have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker and on National Public Radio, and The New Yorker, Rosen was named by The Chicago Tribune as one of the 10 best magazine journalists in America. His books include “The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America,” “The Most Democratic Branch: How the Courts Serve America,” “The Naked Crowd: Freedom and Security in an Anxious Age” and “Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America.” He is co-editor of “Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change.”

Rosen graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University. He was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University, where he received a second bachelor’s degree. He received his Juris Doctorate degree from the Yale Law School.

This program is part of the Law Library’s annual celebration of Law Day—a national event that celebrates the rule of law and its contributions to the freedoms that Americans enjoy. In 1957, the American Bar Association instituted Law Day to draw attention to both the principles and practices of law and justice. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established Law Day with a proclamation in 1958. For more information on Law Day, visit www.lawday.org External.

The 2014 Law Day lecture is part of the Library of Congress commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act, which is anchored by the web-based Civil Rights History Project/ and the exhibition, "The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom." The exhibition, opening June 19, is made possible by a generous grant from Newman’s Own Foundation and with additional support from HISTORY®.

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