Author-legal scholar Kenji Yoshino to speak March 18 at University of Richmond on how societal pressure to conform influences civil rights

March 2, 2009

Kenji Yoshino, author of "Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights," will speak about the themes of his book March 18, 7 p.m., at the University of Richmond's Tyler Haynes Commons, Alice Haynes Room.

Yoshino's book explores sociologist Erving Goffman's concept of "covering" or hiding stigmatized identities and how societal pressure to conform influences civil rights.

Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Camisha Jones at (804) 289-8630.

Yoshino's lecture is presented by the university's One Book, One Campus initiative, a campus-wide effortencouraging students, faculty and staff to read and discuss a selected book on a social justice issue each year. Participants meet for weekly hour-long discussions, culminating with a lecture on the year's topic.

A graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School and a former Rhodes Scholar, Yoshino has written for the Columbia Law Review, Stanford Law Review and Yale Law Journal and been a guest on television's "The Charlie Rose Show" and "The O'Reilly Factor." He is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University.