Caldwell-Stone to talk 'Libraries, Democracy, and the First Amendment' at this year's FFA Lecture

Deborah Caldwell-Stone. (photo courtesy of Joyce McIntosh of the Freedom to Read Foundation.)

By Rakiyah Lenon | Editor in chief

American Library Officer Deborah Caldwell-Stone is headlining this year’s Future of the First Amendment Lecture scheduled for Tuesday, March 12, at 5:30 p.m. in the JSAC Roscoe Williams Ballroom of Augusta University’s Summerville Campus.

The lecture, entitled “Libraries, Democracy, and the First Amendment”, is sponsored by the AU Libraries in coordination with the Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Other sponsors include the AU Department of Communication, Bell Ringer-Phoenix Media, AU Student Chapter of SPJ and The Augusta Press newspaper. The event is open to the public and free.

Caldwell-Stone, the keynote speaker for the talk, is known for her work surrounding First Amendment rights of libraries. Currently, she serves as executive director of the Freedom to Read Foundation and is the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

For over two decades, Caldwell-Stone has collaborated with libraries, librarians and other professionals on issues surrounding intellectual freedom in the United States. She contributed to the 10th published edition of the Intellectual Freedom Manual and other articles on law, policy, and freedoms of intellectual sort, especially pertaining to libraries. She has also served on the faculty for ALA-sponsored Lawyers for Libraries and Law for Librarians workshops.

Caldwell-Stone received a bachelor's degree in mass media communications from Cleveland State University in 1982 and a juris doctoral degree from Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1996.

In previous years, legal counsel for CNN Attorney Frank LoMonte and Freedom Forum Executive Director Gene Policinski have been featured as guest speakers for the Future of the First Amendment Lecture.

For more information, contact David Kerns, senior library assistant of AU Libraries at dkearns@augusta.edu and David Bulla, chair of the AU Department of Communication at dbulla@augusta.edu.

Contact Rakiyah Lenon at rlenon@augusta.edu.