Class News

Howard Gillette ’64 leads a Class Zoom event on civil rights

January 17, 2023

On December 1, 2022, anticipating the Supreme Court’s pending ruling on affirmative action, Howard Gillette ’64 led a distinguished panel in a 90-minute discussion of the consequences to contemporary college admissions practices should prevailing law be overturned. The discussion focused on affirmative action but expanded to include other forms of admission preference such as legacy admissions. This Zoom event was attended by 60 classmates and friends.

The panel included three classmates with extensive civil-rights experience:

• Jim Duderstadt ’64, President emeritus, University of Michigan
• Joe Lieberman ’64, former U.S. Senator
• Joe Rich ’64, civil-rights lawyer

These panelists were joined by two distinguished guest panelists:

• Jonathan Holloway, President of Rutgers University, former Dean of Yale College
• John Brittain, law professor, University of the District of Columbia

The panelists agreed that while affirmative action as practiced might be prohibited by the Court’s future ruling, colleges and universities would continue to seek means to assure diversity among their students, faculty, and staff.

Here is the video of the event:

This program was one of a continuing series of Class Zoom events on topics of interest to our age group and on books authored by classmates. On January 20 at 4:00pm EST, Russell Sunshine ’64 will lead a program on his memoir Far & Away and his blog “Agile Aging.” The next program, to occur in late April, will be led by Dr. Nortin Hadler ’64 on the subject of aging and health. Then, in late September, classmates Len Baker ’64 and Bob Archer ’64 will lead a program on conceptions and misconceptions about renewable energy policy. Specific dates and times will be posted on the Class website well in advance of each event.