Bryn Geffert, dean of libraries and chair of the Presidential Lecture Series steering committee, is happy to announce an official line-up of impressive speakers for the 2024-25 academic year.

In this year's series, the university explores the perennial but newly clamorous question of free speech. Who can and cannot, who does or does not speak in the public and private spheres? Why and why not?

This year’s Burack lecturers include Tom Sullivan, one of the leading scholars on the First Amendment (and UVM’s president emeritus to boot), and Sigal Ben-Porath, presidential professor at the University of Pennsylvania, whose Cancel Wars examines questions of free speech, inclusion, and the polarization of campus politics.

Tarleton Gillespie, a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research New England, will deliver the Zeltzerman Lecture. Gillespie studies the implications of online media platforms as the new distributors of cultural and political discourse.

Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union and professor emeritus at New York University, will deliver the Aiken Lecture. Strossen is best known for convictions concisely encapsulated in the title of her 2018 book, HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship.

This year’s Janus Forum disputants include Suzanne Nossel, chief executive officer of the free-expression advocacy group PEN America, and Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias, a professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences, famous for her work in anti-discrimination law and “memory laws.” Nossel and Gliszczyńska-Grabias will debate whether the more restrictive European/German approach to free expression is preferable to the more libertarian approach that characterizes U.S. case law.

Faculty are welcome to incorporate speaker visits into their courses and to encourage/require students to attend relevant sessions. Speakers might also be able to meet with classes—please contact Michelle Clark if you would like to connect speakers with your students.

Please visit the Presidential Lecture Series page for complete information on dates and locations.