Cass R. Sunstein, one of the nation’s leading constitutional scholars, will lead a timely discussion of the past, present and future of free expression at American universities when he delivers this year’s Konvitz Memorial Lecture.

“Free Speech on Campus” is scheduled for Oct. 30, at 5 p.m. in Landis Auditorium, 184 Myron Taylor Hall. The public is invited; registration is not required.

Sunstein, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University, is a prolific author and served from 2009-12 as administrator in the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and as senior counselor to the secretary of homeland security during the Biden administration.

He has been involved in constitution-making and law reform activities in several nations, including Ukraine, Poland, China, South Africa and Russia.

In his 2024 book, “Campus Free Speech: A Pocket Guide,” published by Harvard University Press, Sunstein argues that free speech requires robust protection of diverse points of view, but universities may regulate speech when doing so is necessary for their educational mission.

The lecture comes nearly 19 years after the inaugural Konvitz Lecture, “The Public Forum: The Affirmative Side of Free Speech,” which Sunstein also gave, on Nov. 8, 2006. Irwin M. Jacobs ’54, BEE ’56, and his wife, the late Joan Klein Jacobs ’54, founded the lecture in 2005.

The annual Milton R. Konvitz Memorial Lectureship in American Ideals is named in honor of the late Milton Konvitz, an ILR School founder and professor, and a leading scholar of American constitutional and labor law, and civil and human rights. The lectureship brings prominent experts in American democratic thought, ethics and political philosophy to campus.

Konvitz was a professor at both the ILR School and the Cornell Law School from 1946 until his retirement in 1973. More than 8,000 Cornell undergraduates participated in Konvtiz’s American Ideals course, which examined the writings and teachings of the great intellectual thinkers and philosophers who shaped America’s democratic values.

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Office of the President and the ILR School.

Julie Greco is the communications director for the School of Industrial and Labor Relations.