Princeton Professor to Give Talk on Natural Law and Offer Critique on Oliver Wendell Holmes

WORCESTER, Mass. – Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, will give a talk on natural law and critique American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes’ refutation of natural law on March 23 at 8 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom. The talk is free and open to the public.

George is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics and served as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights from 1993-98. He also served as Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the 1990 Justice Tom C. Clark Award.

He is a recipient of many honors and awards, including a 2005 Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement, the Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Liberal Arts of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and the Stanley Kelley, Jr. Teaching Award from Princeton’s department of politics. He holds honorary doctorates of law, ethics, letters, science and humane letters.

George is the author of In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford University Press, 2001), Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (Oxford University Press, 1995) and The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion and Morality in Crisis (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2001). He has published numerous scholarly articles and book reviews.

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Fenwick Review; Intercollegiate Studies Institute; Holy Cross chapter of COMPASS, students evangelizing students; and the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.