Scholar/Activist to Address Child-Care Rights, Highlighting Smith's "Ecologies of Childhood" Project

Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania and one of our era's most distinguished scholars and advocates of civil rights, will discuss "The Rights of Families to Child Care" at 7:30 p.m. Monday, February 1, in Wright Hall auditorium.

Berry's appearance, which is free and open to the public, marks the first event of 1999 of the Kahn Liberal Arts Institute's year-long interdisciplinary project on the "Ecologies of Childhood."

The author of "The Politics of Parenthhood: Child Care, Women's Rights and the Myth of the Good Mother" (1993), Berry teaches history and law at Penn and has for two decades been nationally prominent in the fight for civil rights. She served as assistant secretary for education in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare during the Carter administration, and in 1980 was appointed by President Carter to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. After President Reagan fired her for criticizing his civil rights policies, she sued him and won reinstatement in federal district court. In 1993 President Clinton named her chairperson of the Civil Rights Commission. Berry is one of the founders of the Free South Africa Movement and was jailed several times for her part in protests at the South African embassy.

After earning bachelor's and master's degrees at Howard University, Berry went on to receive a doctorate in history from the University of Michigan and a juris doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School. She has received 27 honorary doctoral degrees and numerous awards for her public service and scholarly activities. In addition to "The Politics of Parenthood," Berry has written "Black Resistance/White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America" and (with John W. Blassingame) "Long Memory: The Black Experience in America." Her latest book, "The Pig Farmer's Daughter and Other Tales of American Justice," is scheduled for publication next month. Berry has also been a guest on many television shows, including "Nightline," "Crossfire," "Face the Nation," "Today" and "Oprah."