The University of Colorado at Boulder Cultural Events Board will present a public lecture Friday, April 18 by a noted champion of anti-discrimination efforts across the country.
Attorney Morris Dees' presentation, "Tolerances: Has America Progressed?" will take place at the Flatirons Theater on the Hill at 7:30 p.m. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets will be available at The UMC Connection, on the first floor of the University Memorial Center on the CU-Boulder campus. Free tickets will be available to CU-Boulder students starting Tuesday, April 15, with a limit of two tickets per student. Public tickets are $15 each, and will be on sale from noon to 11 p.m. Wednesday, also at the UMC Connection.
Dees has dedicated his life to battling racial discrimination and prejudice after growing up in Alabama. He co-founded the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1971 and today serves as its chief trial counsel. The center specializes in lawsuits involving civil rights violations, domestic terrorists and racially motivated crimes.
In a number of successful legal battles against the Aryan Nation, the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups, Dees has helped win multi-million dollar settlements for the victims of racially motivated attacks and deaths.
After 30 years of service to the United States tracking and fighting domestic terrorism, Dees has come to believe that the country can be a tolerant and free nation, according to Dees' online biography. Further, he believes that civil liberties and personal freedoms can still be ensured in a new era of international terrorism.
Dees beliefs have become the basis of an educational training program called "Teaching Tolerance" that is used in more than 80,000 schools nationwide.
A graduate of the University of Alabama Law School, Dees has received numerous accolades in conjunction with his work at the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was named a "Trial Lawyer of the Year" by the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, and received the National Education Association's Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award.
Dees has written three books, including an autobiography and a made-for-television movie about his life, "Line of Fire," aired on NBC in 1991 starring Corbin Bernson. Dees also was portrayed by Wayne Rogers in "Ghosts of the Mississippi," a feature film released in 1996 about the life of slain civil rights worker Medgar Evers. HBO premiered a documentary hosted by Dees called "HATE.com" in the fall of 2000 that covered hate crimes and the Internet.
The CU-Boulder Cultural Events Board is part of the university's student government. It receives student fee money each year in order to fund projects that provide the campus with a diverse program of special events, including lectures, films, conferences, art displays, and musical or theatrical performances.
For more information, call the Cultural Events Board at (303) 492-3227.