Bryan Stevenson, "America’s Mandela," to Speak Jan. 14
Civil rights lawyer and author of Just Mercy has spent three decades pursuing equitable justice.
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 7, 2016— With the nation’s attention riveted on the American justice system’s treatment of Black citizens, a lawyer who has used his life, career and fame to challenge bias against the poor and people of color will be the featured speaker at Santa Clara University Jan. 14, 2016.
Bryan Stevenson is founder and executive director of the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) and professor of clinical law at New York University, who has argued five times before the Supreme Court. He will speak at a sold-out event at Santa Clara University’s Mayer Theatre at 7:30 p.m.
Stevenson has spent the last three decades focusing on social justice and human rights, especially the unfair treatment of defendants of color in criminal and capital cases. He was described by Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu as “America’s Mandela,” for his lifelong devotion and nonstop focus on judicial inequity.
Through EJI, which he founded in 1989, Stevenson has helped secure relief for dozens of unfairly condemned prisoners in Alabama, advocated for litigation reform, and helped draw attention to problems such as the voting disenfranchisement of black males and the trend of trying younger and younger defendants as adults.
He was the 2009 commencement speaker for Santa Clara University School of Law, and received the 2008 Alexander Law Prize from the law school. The recipient of virtually every major public service law award, Stevenson graduated magna cum laude from Eastern University in Pennsylvania and received degrees from Harvard Law School and the Harvard School of Government.
Stevenson will sign copies of his popular 2014 memoir Just Mercy after the event.
About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its more than 9,000 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, and engineering; master’s degrees in business, education, counseling psychology, pastoral ministry, and theology; and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master’s universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.
Media Contact
Deborah Lohse | SCU Media Relations | dlohse@scu.edu | 408-554-5121