Rowland to discuss 'First Amendment 2.0: Speech and Censorship in Our Digital Age' at 2024 FFA Lecture

Lee Rowland, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship. (courtesy photo)

By Rakiyah Lenon | Editor in chief

Former lawyer Lee Rowland is keynote speaker at 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. 

Rowland, who currently serves as executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, is headlining the event in place of the previously scheduled speaker, Deborah Caldwell-Stone, who had to cancel her appearance.  

The new lecture, entitled “First Amendment 2.0: Speech and Censorship in Our Digital Age,” 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. 

Rowland served over ten years as a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, the Brennan Center for Justice and the New York Civil Liberties Union. She was the lead counsel in federal First Amendment cases involving public employee speech rights, First Amendment rights of community advocates, government regulation of digital speech and issues concerning the lethal injection process. She has also written briefs and blogs on issues surrounding speech and privacy intersection, student and public employee speech, obscenity, and the Communications Decency Act.  

A graduate of Middlebury College and Harvard Law School, Rowland has taught at New York University School of Law and the Hunter College Human Rights Program. She is also a member of the Communications and Media Law Committee of the New York Bar Association.   

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.