Randall Kennedy ’82 to Deliver Thomas Lecture on Oct. 24

Professor and author Randall Kennedy ’82 will deliver the James A. Thomas Lecture, titled “From Protest to Law: Triumphs and Defeats in Struggles for Racial Justice, 1950–1970,” on Oct. 24.

The lecture will take place in Sterling Law Building Room 129 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. and is open to the Yale community. Registration is required.

Kennedy is Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School, where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. His current classes include From Protest to Law, which examines changes in the law wrought by protests against racial injustice that erupted in the mid-20th century over such disputes as segregation, invidious private racial discrimination, and racial disfranchisement. 

Kennedy attended St. Albans School, Princeton University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. Kennedy is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court of the United States. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. A member of the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association, he is also a Trustee emeritus of Princeton University.

The James A. Thomas Lecture was established by Yale Law School students in 1989 to honor Associate Dean James A. Thomas ’64, to recognize scholars whose work addresses the concerns of communities or groups currently marginalized with the legal academy or society at large.