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The Center for Western Civilization, Thought & Policy will host law professor Laura Weinrib for an event on Wed. March 20. Weinrib's lecture "The First Weaponization of the First Amendment," will discuss how the first amendment first became "weaponized" in the 1930s and how that has affected constitutional rights today. She is speaking as part of the Western Civ Dialogue Series.

Weinrib's lecture will explain how in the 30s, radical labor activists first weaponized the first amendment. She argues that the unusual coalition between the activists and business leaders helped to make judicial enforcement of free speech a central feature of American constitutional democracy. Weinrib will explain how this forgotten bargain backfired and how it has implicated the contest over constitutional rights in the present day.

Weinrib is a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School and is also an associate member of the department of history at the school. She is a legal historian, whose work focuses on the intersection of constitutional law and labor law. Weinrib's research also includes American legal history, labor law, and civil liberties. Weinrib is also the author of The Taming of Free Speech: America’s Civil Liberties Compromise.

This event is co-sponsored by LeRoy Keller Center for the Study of the First Amendment, the ²ÊÃñ±¦µä History Department, and the Center for Communication and Democratic Engagement.

Students, faculty, and members of the public are encouraged to attend the lecture. The scheduled presentation will take place in Hale Science, room 270, beginning at 5:30 pm. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A session and a small reception. .