USI annual Berger Lecture to explore impact of book banning in America

The University of Southern Indiana Communication and Media Department and the College of Liberal Arts will welcome Sanford Ungar, Director of the Georgetown University Free Speech Project, as presenter of the 2023 Berger Lecture. The lecture will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, October 26 in the USI Performance Center. The event is open to the public at no charge.  

Unger’s lecture, “Banning Books to Please Parents: The Political Assault on Free Expression,” will cover the negative impact of banning books on the education system in America and on the young minds who will grow into our future leaders.  

Following his lecture, there will be a panel discussion featuring Dr. Chad Tew, Associate Professor of Journalism, Dr. Elizabeth Wilkins, Assistant Professor of Teacher Education, and R. Scott Kinney, CEO of Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library. A reception will follow.  

“What began as an effort by a few strategically placed parents to protect their children from a small number of books they regarded as inappropriate has expanded into a full-fledged front in the culture wars raging around us,” says Ungar. “Librarians are under steady attack, even threatened with criminal prosecution, over where they shelve certain books.” 

Ungar served as the 10th President of Goucher College from 2001-14. Prior to assuming that position, Ungar served as Director of the Voice of America, the U.S. government’s principal international broadcasting agency, for two years during the Clinton administration. He is a respected educator who previously served as Dean of the School of Communication at American University. Ungar also is an international journalist with extensive experience at news organizations such as Foreign Policy, The Washington Post and The Atlantic, and he was an award-winning co-host of All Things Considered at NPR. Ungar is a graduate of Harvard College and the London School of Economics and is the author or editor of six nonfiction books. 

The College of Liberal Arts honors Sydney Berger, a well-respected lawyer in Evansville, every year with a guest lecture about civil rights or civil liberties. Berger worked with local groups fighting for civil rights and labor rights, and he also taught constitutional law at USI for almost 20 years. When he died in 1988, the editor of the Evansville Courier said that no one in the city had done more for people who were struggling, such as the poor, the underprivileged and those who had been denied their rights.

For more information, visit USI.edu/liberal-arts/special-programs/berger-lecture.