Frederic Ewen Lecture on Civil Liberties and Academic Freedom

Frederic Ewen was a professor of English at Brooklyn College from 1930 to 1952. In 1940, during the height of the McCarthy era, Ewen refused to testify before a New York State legislative panel on allegations of subversive activities of the city’s public schools and colleges. He said of the decision to investigate the educational system “is an attack on the things that the system stands for and has fought in the last 20 years to obtain.” Ewen was recommended for a promotion in 1942, which was declined by the president of Brooklyn College at the time. Though he was forced to retire in 1952, an annual lecture series on civil liberties and academic freedom was later established in his honor by his nephew, Herbert Kurz.

Past Events

Not all events are digitally available.

Fall 2020

• September 22, 2020: Race, Violence, and Power with Kobie Colemon
• October 8, 2020: Shimmering Contraries: Medieval Grammar and the Rise of Race and Racism

Fall 2018–Spring 2019

• December 4, 2018: A Nation of Immigrants: A Short History of an Idea (pdf) with Mae Ngai

Fall 2017–Spring 2018

• January 30, 2018: Academic Freedom in the Age of Trump (pdf) with Hans-Joerg Tiede

Fall 2016–Spring 2017

• May 19–20, 2017: The Cost of Freedom: Debt and Slavery (pdf)

Fall 2015–Spring 2016

• February 23, 2016: Should the NYPD Be Spying on Our Campuses? (pdf)
• March 22, 2016: Screening of(T)error (pdf) with director Lyric Cabral
• October 15, 2015: Austerity and Its Discontent: The Fight to Reclaim Public Higher Education (pdf)

Fall 2014–Spring 2015

• November 12, 2014: The New Censorship: Net Discrimination, Net Neutrality, and Free Speech on the Internet (pdf) with Dawn Nunziato

Fall 2013–Spring 2014

• March 12, 2014: Distributed Dystopia: Surveillance and Visibility in Dave Eggers’ The Circle (pdf) with David Lyon
• March 13, 2014: Surveillance after Snowden: Decoding the “Snooping Scandal” (pdf) with David Lyon

Fall 2012–Spring 2013

• February 19, 2013: Priests of Our Democracy (pdf) with Marjorie Heins

Fall 2011–Spring 2012

• April 30, 2012: Equal Surveillance Under Law: Public & Private Partnerships vs. Bill of Rights (pdf) with Frank Pasquale
• December 5, 2011: Harvard Yard to Lubyanka? Academic Freedom and the Net in the Facebook Era (pdf) with Eben Moglen

Fall 2010–Spring 2011

• October 12, 2010: Gary Rhoades: A Ewen Civil Liberties Lecture (pdf)