First Amendment Expert to Discuss
President's Faith-Based Initiative

The controversial issue of faith-based initiatives and the constitutionality of their government-funded support will be explored at Smith College on Thursday, March 8, when Michael W. McConnell, one of the country's leading experts on religious perspectives of the First Amendment, lectures on "Faith and Hope in Charity: The President's 'Faith-Based' Initiative in Constitutional Perspective."

McConnell's lecture -- which is free, open to the public and wheelchair accessible-- will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Sweeney Concert Hall at Sage Hall.

Since the second week of President George W. Bush's term in office, when he proposed government funding for faith-based charitable organizations, the issue of faith-based initiatives has received a flood of national media attention amid questions about the constitutional separation of church and state.

McConnell, the Presidential Professor of Law at the University of Utah College of Law, will discuss the faith-based initiative within the context of the United States Supreme Court's shifting jurisprudence regarding church-state separation. McConnell has argued 11 cases before the Supreme Court -- nine of them successfully -- including Bowen v. Kendrick and Helms v. Mitchell, two leading precedent-setting cases.

McConnell, who served as a law clerk for the late William J. Brennan, Jr., associate justice on the Supreme Court for 34 years until his 1990 retirement, is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. At the University of Utah College of Law, he teaches about constitutional law; religion and the First Amendment; family law; regulated industries; and state and local government.

Following undergraduate studies at Michigan State University and completion of a law degree from the University of Chicago, McConnell served as a law clerk for J. Skelly Wright, chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1981­83, he was the assistant general counsel of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and followed that appointment with a three-year term as the assistant to the Solicitor General at the Department of Justice.

McConnell has published widely on constitutional law and theory, with a concentration on the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. In addition to having written more than 50 law reviews and chapters in edited volumes, he has contributed articles to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Slate and Weekly Standard. He has published two books, "Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought" and "Religion and the Constitution."

The lecture will be followed by a reception in the Green Room at Sage Hall.

Contact: Marti Hobbes, mhobbes@smith.edu

February 21, 2001