MOUNT VERNON — Economist Walter Williams, a syndicated columnist and commentator for television and radio programs from “Face the Nation” to “Rush Limbaugh,” will lecture and participate in a discussion with faculty members at Cornell College on Thursday, May 4. The lecture, “How Much Can Discrimination Explain: The False Civil Rights Vision,” is at 11 a.m. and the discussion is at 1:30 p.m., both in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons. Admission is free.
The discussion will feature formal responses by Cornell politics professor Craig Allin and associate professor of sociology Mary Olson. Leon Tabak, associate professor of computer science, will moderate.
Williams is John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and chair of the department at George Mason University. He has frequently given expert testimony before Congressional committees on public policy issues ranging from labor policy to taxation and spending.
His writings have appeared in scholarly journals including Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review, Georgia Law Review, Journal of Labor Economics and Social Science Quarterly, as well as popular publications such as Newsweek, Freeman, National Review, Reader’s Digest, Cato Journal and Policy Review. He writes a weekly syndicated column carried by approximately 160 newspapers. He has authored six books: “America: A Minority Viewpoint”; “The State Against Blacks,” which was later made into the PBS documentary “Good Intentions”; “All It Takes Is Guts”; “South Africa’s War Against Capitalism,” which was later revised for South African publication; “Do the Right Thing: The People’s Economist Speaks”; and “More Liberty Means Less Government.”
His television and radio appearances include “Nightline,” “Firing Line,” “Face the Nation,” Milton Friedman’s “Free To Choose,” “Crossfire,” “MacNeil/Lehrer,” “Wall Street Week” and as a regular commentator for “Nightly Business Report.” He is also an occasional substitute host for the “Rush Limbaugh” show.
Williams holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from California State University and master’s and doctorate degrees in economics from UCLA.
Williams is presenting the second lecture in the annual Earhart-Cornell Lecture series, “The Liberal Arts and the Public Square,” funded by the Earhart Foundation of Ann Arbor, Mich. The lecture series began with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia last year. In 2001 the speaker will be Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Eleonore Raoul Professor of the Humanities at Emory University, an expert on comparative women’s history, the history of labor and of U.S. cultural and intellectual history.