Lani Guinier – Harvard professor, author, and one of the nation’s leading thinkers on issues of race, gender, the legal profession, and democratic decision-making – will speak on “The Miner’s Canary” in Bannan 127 at noon on Friday, November 12. A reception will follow at 1 p.m. in the Strong Common room in Bergin Hall.
Professor Guinier is the author of many books, articles, and op-ed pieces on democratic theory, political representation, educational equity, and issues of race and gender. Guinier’s most recent book, The Miner’s Canary (Harvard Press 2002), written with Gerald Torres, addresses the experience of people of color as a warning or “canary” signaling larger institutional inequities. In a recent piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Guinier argues that colleges should practice “confirmative action,” meaning that all students should be evaluated and educated to confirm the sacred, democratic mission of higher learning.
Guinier also is the author of The Tyranny of the Majority (Free Press 1994) about issues of political representation; Who’s Qualified? (Beacon Press 2001), written with Susan Sturm, about moving beyond affirmative action to reconsider the ways in which colleges admit all students; Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School and Institutional Change, written with Michelle Fine and Jane Balin, in which they investigated the experience of women in law school; and a personal and political memoir, Lift Every Voice.
Lani Guinier is the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law and the first black woman tenured professor at Harvard Law School. She is “an idea woman” who does not shrink from controversy and “a prophetic voice” for issues of racial justice, gender equity, and democratic transformation. She co-founded the Racetalks Initiative, a research and public education project that seeks to develop new interdisciplinary paradigms for linking racial and gender justice to the project of building more inclusive institutions.
