Emeritus Professor Robert S. Alley to Receive First Freedom Award
January 12, 2006
Robert S. Alley, University of Richmond professor of humanities emeritus, has been named one of three recipients of a 2006 First Freedom Award from the Council for America’s First Freedom.
He will join Vaclav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic and Czechoslovakia; and Chet Edwards, seven-term U.S. Representative from Waco, Texas., in receiving the award on Jan. 18 at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond.
Havel will receive the International First Freedom Award, Edwards the National First Freedom Award and Alley the Virginia First Freedom Award.
“These three honorees have dedicated much of their professional lives to the defense of religious liberty,” said Tommy Baer, president of the Council for America’s First Freedom. “They are people of conscience and principles whose insights and courage have helped deepen our collective understanding of religious freedom and fortify the foundation of the inherent human right.”
Havel is also an award-winning playwright and passionate global champion of interfaith dialogue and freedom of conscience. Edwards is an ardent proponent of the nation’s founding principle of church-state separation.
Alley, a strong proponent of clear separation between church and state, is author or co-author of several books on religion, government and education, including “School Prayer: The Court, the Congress, and the First Amendment.” He was the first recipient of the Virginia ACLU Bill of Rights Award in 1994.
The 12th-annual awards will commemorate the 220th anniversary of the nation’s first law guaranteeing religious liberty.