Santa Monica College will celebrate Constitution Day this year with an informative talk by renowned legal scholar Jonathan Turley from 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (PDT) on Friday, September 17. A brief discussion and Q&A, moderated by Hari Vishwanadha, will follow the talk.
The talk is free and will be presented online as a live virtual event. A Zoom link taking guests directly to the event will be available on the event date at smc.edu/calendar shortly before the event begins. To attend, Zoom software must be installed on the viewer’s computer (free download available at zoom.com).
The event is sponsored by the Associated Students of Santa Monica College, with support from the SMC Civic Engagement Committee.
Constitution Day, also known as Citizenship Day, was established in 2005 to honor the signing of the United States Constitution on September 17, 1787, by the 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. All educational institutions that receive federal funds must present a program for students each Constitution Day to celebrate the rights and liberties protected by a written Constitution.
The J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University Law School, Turley was named the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history in 1998, and is nationally recognized for his expertise in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. He is a columnist for USA Today, writes regularly for the Washington Post and other national publications, and appears regularly on all of the major television networks as a legal expert.
Professor Turley has served as counsel in some of the nation’s most notable cases, representing clients ranging from whistleblowers — including the Area 51 workers at a secret air base in Nevada and the nuclear couriers at Oak Ridge, Tennessee — to military personnel, judges, and members of Congress.
He is the founder and executive director of the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS). For his work with older prisoners, he has been honored with the Dr. Mary Ann Quaranta Elder Justice Award at Fordham University. His award-winning blog, Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks, is ranked as one of the most popular legal blogs by AVVO, and has been regularly ranked in the top 100 blogs in the world by the ABA Journal, which inducted the blog into its Hall of Fame in 2013.
For more information, please call (310) 434-4003.
Submitted by Grace Smith, Santa Monica College
