Helen Norton, Professor, Colorado Law
Saturday, Jan. 27, 2018 • 1–3 p.m.
At what point does our government's speech threaten equality or liberty in ways that violate the equal protection or due process clauses as well as free speech? Join us as Professor Helen Norton discusses the nature of government speech and how its power can be used in both empowering and detrimental ways. Governments have always had the power to speak, but new expressive technologies now empower government to speak in new ways through Twitter and other social media channels, webcasts, blogs and more. Norton will focus on the dark side of the government's speech, and describe the circumstances under which the U.S. Constitution prohibits our government from lying to us.
About the presenter
Helen Norton holds the Ira C. Rothgerber, Jr. Chair in Constitutional Law at CU Boulder. Her scholarly and teaching interests include constitutional law, civil rights and employment discrimination law. Before entering academia, Norton served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as director of Legal and Public Policy at the National Partnership for Women & Families. She holds a law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, where she served as Associate Editor of the California Law Review, and a bachelor's degree from Stanford University, where she graduated with distinction. For more information, visit Norton's website.