Catharine A. MacKinnon

2008 Edward A. Seegers Lecture

March 28, 2008 | 4 to 5 p.m. | Tabor Auditorium
Valparaiso University School of Law

In this discussion, Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon addresses the masculinity of states as an overlooked and crucial dimension of international politics. She surveys the status of women around the world and in the international system at the same time. Professor MacKinnon explains why she concludes that international approaches to women’s rights offer distinctive promise for addressing sex inequality.

Reception in the Duesenberg Commons immediately following.

About Catharine A. MacKinnon

Catharine A. MacKinnon specializes in sex equality issues in international and constitutional law. She pioneered the legal claim for sexual harassment and, with Andrea Dworkin, created ordinances recognizing pornography as a civil rights violation. The Supreme Court of Canada largely accepted her approaches to equality, pornography, and hate speech. Her scholarly books include Sex Equality (2001), Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (1989), Only Words (1993), Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws (2005), and Are Women Human? (2006). She is published in journals, the popular press, and many languages. Representing Bosnian women survivors of Serbian genocidal sexual atrocities, she won with co-counsel a damage award of $745 million in August 2000 in Kadic v. Karadzic, which first recognized rape as an act of genocide. She works with Equality Now, an NGO promoting international sex equality rights for women. Professor MacKinnon holds a B.A. from Smith College, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and a Ph.D. in political science from Yale. She has taught at Yale, Chicago, Harvard, Osgoode Hall, Stanford, Basel (Switzerland), and Columbia, spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study, and practices and consults nationally and internationally. She is one of the most widely cited legal scholars in the English language.

About the Edward A. Seegers Lecture Series

The late Edward A. Seegers, a Chicago attorney, was uncommonly faithful and generous in his extended support of Valparaiso University. During his lifetime, Mr. Seegers made significant contributions for scholarships and new buildings, and he fully endowed a law school chair in honor of his father and mother, Louis and Anna Seegers. This chair is currently held by Professor Bruce Berner. A graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, Mr. Seegers was granted honorary alumni membership by the VU Alumni Association in 1977. His contributions to charity included a home for a parochial school superintendent, a scholarship fund to assist young men entering the ministry, a church organ, a wing to a child welfare building, and a building at the Dakota Boys’ Ranch. Mr. Seegers was a member and vice president of the Lutheran Bar Association and a lifetime member of Immanuel Church in Hillside, Illinois.

Previous Seegers Lectures

2007 Philip Allott
Professor Emeritus of International Public Law Cambridge University

2006 Larry D. Kramer
Professor of Law and Dean at Standford Law School

2005 Paul Matcus, Roscoe C. Howard, Jr. and Sandra Guerra Thompson
Symposium Lecture: The Miranda Project

2003 Mari J. Matsude
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center

2002 Lori B. Andrews
Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College and Director of the Institute for Science, Law and Technology

2001 Laura Nader
Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley

2000 Stanley Fish
Dean of College of Liberal Arts and Science University of Illinois at Chicago

1999 Ronald Dworkin
Professor of Law, New York University Law School

1998 Akhil Reed Amar
Southmayd Professor of Law, Yale Law School

1997 John Finnis
Professor of Law & Legal Philosophy, Oxford University

1996 Bernard D. Meltzer
Edwards H. Levi Distinguished Services Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago Law School

1995 Derrick Bell
Visiting Professor, New York University School of Law

1994 Sandra Day O’Connor
Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court

1993 Alfred W. Meyer
Louis & Anna Seegers Professor of Law Emeritus, Valparaiso University School of Law

1992 Richard D. Parker
Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

1991 Mark V. Tushnet
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law School

1990 Robert S. Summer
McRoberts Research Professor of Law, Cornell University Law School

1989 William Teining
Quain Professor of Jurisprudence, University College London

1988 Quintin Johnstone
Justus S. Hotchkiss Professor of Law Emeritus, Yale Law School

1986 Eugene V. Rostow
Distinguished Visiting Research Professor of Law & Diplomacy, National Defense University

1985 D. Neil MacCormick
Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Edinburgh

1983 Harold J. Berman
James Barr Ames Professor, Harvard Law School

1981 Thomas L. Shaffer
Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School