Home Official News Releases Drake Constitution Day will feature speaker David Cole on post-9/11 rights

Drake Constitution Day will feature speaker David Cole on post-9/11 rights

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David Cole

The Drake University 2011 Constitution Day lecture will commemorate the tragic events of 9/11 with an address by David Cole, professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Cole’s speech is titled “Constitutional Rights Ten Years after 9/11: Has Everything Changed?”

The event, sponsored by Drake University and  The Drake Constitutional Law Center, will be held
3 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, in room 213 of Cartwright Hall, 2621 Carpenter Ave. It is free and open to the public.

David Cole teaches constitutional law, national security, and criminal justice at Georgetown University Law Center. He has litigated constitutional cases in the Supreme Court, including most recently, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project””a case that challenged the constitutionality of the statute prohibiting material support to terrorist groups. Former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis has called Cole “one of the country’s great legal voices for civil liberties today.”  

Cole is the legal affairs correspondent for The Nation, a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, and a commentator on the National Public Radio show All Things Considered. Cole has been published widely, including in the Yale Law Journal, California Law Review, Stanford Law Review, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. He is the author of six award-winning books, including his most recent book, The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable (The New Press, 2009.)

“The Drake Constitutional Law Center has had a long tradition of hosting some of the most important lawyers, legal scholars, judges and other public figures in the country,” says Allan Vestal, dean of Drake University Law School. “Professor Cole is certainly one of the nation’s leading experts regarding the civil liberties implications of the war on terror. This is a great event for Constitution Day and in remembrance of the 10th anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11.”

The United States’ national identity is at stake in the examination of how our rights have been impacted by September 11, says Mark Kende, director of the Drake University Constitutional Law Center.

“If we don’t take action to prevent another such event, we will suffer a devastating blow as a nation and thousands of innocent people could be killed,” Kende says. “But if we go too far and unnecessarily suppress civil liberties, this undermines our Constitution and the very causes we are fighting for.”


“Constitutional Rights Ten Years After 9/11: Has Everything Changed?”

David Cole, professor at Georgetown University Law Center, will deliver the
Constitution Day lecture.

When: 3 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 15

Where: Room 213 Cartwright Hall, 2621 Carpenter Ave.

Info: Drake University Constitutional Law Center, 515-271-2988