Brandeis University, Office of Special Events

11/06/2016

Alexander Faria Band and Nu Era are warmed up and ready for the Blue and White Bash! Come join us this evening in Shapiro Gym!

10/31/2016

Join us for the Blue and White Bash, a special evening of music and dancing that will cap off the Inauguration in style! Featuring The Alexander Faria Band and Nu Era

Date: Saturday, November 5
Time: 8:30 p.m. – 12:30 a.m.
Location: Shapiro Gym

Dessert bar and a live-action smores station, and other sweet and salty treats.

All members of the campus community are encouraged to come dressed in creative blue-and-white attire.

Blue and White Bash tickets can be picked up at the Shapiro Campus Center box office Monday through Friday from noon to 6 p.m., and Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. (Please remember to bring your Brandeis ID.) Tickets will be available at the box office until 4 p.m. on November 5, or at the door of the event with a Brandeis ID.

05/18/2016

Honorary degree recipient is an abstract artist and civil rights activist whose work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Modern, and the Whitney Museum of American art along with many others. Most notably, his work “Jack Whitten Five Decades of Painting” was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and later traveled to the Wexner Center for the Arts
Additionally, Whitten created a monumental artwork “9.11.01” as a memorial to the lives lost on September 11, which included crushed bone, glass, and ash. Throughout his career as an artist, Whitten has been heavily influenced by abstract expressionists in the art community.

We are very pleased to announce that Jack will be giving a special artist talk on Saturday, May 21st . This event is open to the Brandeis community.

https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2016/march/commencement-announcement.html

Alumna Julieanna Richardson, the creator of the largest video oral-history archive of the African-American experience, will return to campus to deliver Brandeis University’s Commencement address May 22.

03/16/2016

The Richman Distinguished Fellow in Public Life will bring Theaster Gates to Brandeis from March 21 through March 24, including a public talk on Wednesday, March 23, to award him the Richman Fellowship. Richman Fellows are selected from among individuals active in public life whose contributions have had a significant impact on improving American society, strengthening democratic institutions, advancing social justice or increasing opportunities for all citizens to realize and share in the benefits of this nation.

Theaster Gates is an installation artist, activist, curator, and a renowned member in the global art world. Recognized by the Wall Street Journal as “Innovator of the Year”, Gates is committed to the revitalization of poor neighborhoods through combining urban planning and art practices. Gates’ most esteemed projects include the “Dorchester Projects” and “Arts incubator” in Chicago, where he turned inadequate buildings into cultural hubs. Additionally, he is Director of Arts + Public Life at the University of Chicago where he builds creative connections on Chicago’s South Side through artwork.

The Richman Fellowship will be awarded to Gates at the Wasserman Cinematique in the Sachar International Center Wednesday, March 23, 2016 at 4pm. The event is free and open to the public.

02/11/2016

The Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize is presented annually to a distinguished scholar whose professional work reflects scholarly excellence and makes a lasting contribution to racial, ethnic or religious relations. Brandeis University has selected Martha Minow, Dean of the Harvard Law School, as this year’s winner of the 2015-2016 Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize.

Minow is a prominent leader in bringing legal ideas and scholarship to touch upon significant issues such as race, identity and equality. Minow is known for her innovative approaches to reconciliation and divided peoples, as well as her books “Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History After Genocide and Mass Violence” and “In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Constitutional Landmark”. Both readings emphasized finding peace in divided societies post-conflict.

Recently, Minow has served as presidential appointee on the board of the Legal Services Corporation, MacArthur Foundation, the Covenant Foundation and other nonprofit organizations, and is the former chair of the board of Facing History and Ourselves.

The Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize will be awarded to Minow at Brandeis on Thursday, February 25, 2016 at 4pm in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall, where she will give a public lecture to the Brandeis community.

02/01/2016

In continuing the celebration of Louis D. Brandeis’ centennial anniversary of his appointment to the Supreme Court, Brandeis invites the community to take part in the ‘DEIS Impact Keynote Address and Performance with Germaine Ingram this week!

Tomorrow, February 2nd from 2:00-3:20pm in the SCC Theatre, Germaine Ingram, civil rights lawyer and jazz tap dancer, will present a performance of original songs and dances, combined with text from slave narratives, diaries, women’s autobiographies and more. She will be accompanied by Musicians Dr. Jacqueline Pickett and Diane Monroe. Following the performance, there will be a talkback from 3:30-4:30pm with the members of the performance. All are highly encouraged to attend this free event!

On Wednesday, February 3rd at 7:30pm in the SCC Theatre, Germaine Ingram will also deliver the Keynote Address- “The Law and the Stage: Platforms for Pursuing Social Justice”. This keynote includes excerpts from her performance, “Freedom Underfoot,” presented on Tuesday, February 2nd. Ingram illuminates her lives in the law, arts & culture, and the broad civic arena as avenues for advancing social justice.

Both events are open to the Brandeis community, and tickets are not required.

12/16/2015

Associate Justice Ginsburg has provided many monumental opinions throughout her tenure on the Supreme Court, and her dissent opinion in Bush v. Gore was also one her most famous. Bush V. Gore is the United States Supreme court decision that resolved the conflict surrounding the 2000 presidential election. The Court had halted the Florida recount that was occurring.

Deference to other branches and levels of government is a consistent theme of Justice Ginsburg's jurisprudence, and it featured in one of the Justice's most famous dissents, her opinion in Bush v. Gore, 2000. There Justice Ginsburg vehemently disagreed with her colleagues' decision to halt the presidential election recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. She argued that longstanding traditions of deference to state court interpretations of state law precluded intervention on the ground that the Supreme Court disagreed with the Florida court's interpretation of governing Florida statutes, and that questions regarding the practical possibility of a timely recount or consequences of missed federal deadlines should be left to Florida officials and Congress.

12/09/2015

As we approach the centennial event featuring Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on January 28th, 2016 , let’s take a look at her majority opinions on landmark cases. The first case we cover, United States v. Virginia, describes her majority opinion where she vehemently advanced women’s rights and gender equality.
UNITED STATES V. VIRGINIA

In a fitting capstone to her career as an advocate for gender equality, Justice Ginsburg wrote the decision in United States v. Virginia, which held that Virginia acted unconstitutionally in refusing to admit women to the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). Justice Ginsburg's opinion eloquently stated the core principle underlying constitutional protection against gender discrimination: "Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities." Justice Ginsburg found that Virginia failed to provide the "exceedingly persuasive justification" needed to sustain gender-based government action. Virginia had defended its categorical exclusion of women from VMI offered on the grounds that admitting women would destroy VMI's adversative training method because such training was fundamentally unsuited for women. According to Justice Ginsburg, this justification rested on overly broad generalizations about women in disregard of their individual merit, and represented precisely the type of self-fulfilling prophecies once routinely used to deny rights or opportunities to women.

REIMINDER: The lottery for this event will close at 11:59 pm TODAY, Dec. 9th.

12/03/2015

The Office of Special Events is proud to present the 100th anniversary celebration of Louis D. Brandeis nomination to the Supreme Court, which is less than two months away.

The first of the events honoring Justice Brandeis is a panel discussion, “Louis D. Brandeis, the Supreme Court and American Democracy”, on Thursday, January 28, 2016. The event includes opening remarks from Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. A panel discussion will follow Associate Ginsburg’s opening remarks, which includes distinguished commentators and jurists.

This highly anticipated event will require a ticket, and in order to make the ticket distribution as fair as possible, there will be a ticket lottery until Wednesday, December 9th. You can enter the lottery online (http://www.brandeis.edu/ldb-100/ticket-lottery.html). Winners will be chosen at random and notified in early January.

For more information regarding the centennial series events, please visit http://www.brandeis.edu/ldb-100/events/index.html.

11/12/2015

In three months, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, will be at Brandeis University. Justice Ginsburg’s career and life are being documented in the movie 'On the Basis of S*x', where Natalie Portman will play the role of Justice Ginsburg. The movie will present the obstacles Ginsburg faced throughout her work to promote equal rights for women.

Justice Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. She was the second woman and the first Jewish woman to sit on the court. The movie will be sure to document the landmark cases Ginsburg worked on throughout her career. Ginsburg was the principal author of a brief in the case of Reed v. Reed, where she represented a female plaintiff which led to the court eliminating an old Idaho law that only granted men the ability to have ownership of an estate.

As the founder of the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union she worked on cases that led to the removal of laws that treated men and women differently. We are excited to have Justice Ginsburg at Brandeis and also equally excited for the production of 'On the Basis of S*x'. Production is set to begin by the end of 2015.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/08/natalie-portman-ruth-bader-ginsburg-basis-sex

Natalie Portman will play Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On the Basis of S*x, EW has confirmed. Deadline.com was first to report the...

11/04/2015

In anticipation for Justice Louis D. Brandeis’ anniversary of being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Woodrow Wilson, here are some quick facts about Justice Brandeis:

• At the age of 18, Brandeis entered Harvard Law School without a formal college degree; he achieved one of the most outstanding records in its history.
• Brandeis co-authored one of the most famous law articles in history, “The Right to Privacy”, published in the December 1890 Harvard Law Review. In the article they argued that the makers of the Constitution “conferred the right to be let alone –the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.”
• Brandeis established a lucrative practice and was able to serve in various public cases; one example is where he brought legal protections to industrial laborers. Brandeis introduced what came to be known as the “Brandeis brief” where he defended the Oregon law establishing wages and hours for women laborers. The brief went far beyond legal precedent to consider the various economic and social factors which led the legislature to pass the law.
• Justice Brandeis was the first ever Jew nominated for America’s highest court. This appointment came with opposition as 6 former presidents of the American Bar Association and former US President Howard Taft denounced Brandeis for his radical political views.
• Brandeis bravely defended civil liberties, as seen in two cases; The Olmstead case where he protected the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and opposed the legality of wire-tapping and Whitney v. California where he opposed a California law suppressing free speech.

Source: http://www.brandeis.edu/legacyfund/bio.html

"Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."

10/14/2015

The Office of Special Events was proud to present the celebration of Anita Hill’s appointment as University Professor.

Hill is only the seventh-ever University Professor at Brandeis. The title of University Professor is awarded to faculty members of surpassing eminence whose work cuts across disciplinary boundaries, who have achieved exceptional scholarly or professional distinction within the academic community, and whose appointment will enhance the reputation and prestige of the University.

The Brandeis community celebrated Hill’s appointment on September 24th where Hill presented the lecture “Undoing Generations of Rank Discrimination: Inclusive Communities and the Future of Anti-Bias Forensics” regarding the Supreme Court decision on Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc.. Hill urged the members of the University to question long-standing traditions that may be unconsciously biased and unintentionally discriminatory. Hill stated “we have to ask ourselves some tough questions about how we deal with unconscious bias and how we deal with exclusionary systems and policies, which we keep as part of the academic tradition even though they do not contribute to our academic mission”.

We were pleased to honor Anita Hill’s appointment and we look forward to providing the Brandeis community with additional special events.