Cambridge Forum Event - Feb 2

Kenji Yoshino discusses:

COVERING: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights

7:30 p. m., Thursday, February 2, 2006
Cambridge Forum
3 Church Street (Harvard Square)
Cambridge, MA 02138

Free and Open to the Public!

Author Kenji Yoshino argues for a new way of thinking about civil rights at what he calls "a transitional moment in how Americans discriminate." Why do we let the pressures of society force us to "cover," to tone down an aspect of our personality so that we fit into the mainstream? In a culture that often unfairly demands conformity, how can we present our authentic selves? Yoshino articulates the limits of what the law and identity politics can do to protect civil rights and asks how we can create a genuinely diverse society. Fusing rigorous legal analysis with a deep appreciation of his own experience as a gay Asian American, he follows the Romantics in his belief that if a human life is described with enough particularity, the universal will speak through it. The resulting transcendent vision of civil rights focuses on the freedoms that draw Americans together.

Kenji Yoshino is a professor of law and deputy dean for intellectual life at Yale Law School. A specialist in constitutional law, antidiscrimination law, and law and literature, he has published in both legal and general interest journals, including The Boston Globe, The Nation, The New York Times and The Village Voice. He has appeared on The Charlie Rose Show and The O'Reilly Factor.

Cambridge Forums are free and open to the public. Open discussion follows speaker presentation. Copies of Yoshino's book Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights will be for sale at the event which is co-sponsored by the Harvard Book Store.

Events are taped and edited for public radio broadcast t hroughout the nation. Edited CDs are available to the public by contacting 617-495-2727. Select forums can be viewed in their entirety on demand by visiting our website at www.cambridgeforum. org and clicking on the WGBH Forum Network.