Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor and one of the nation’s leading authorities on constitutional law, delivered the inaugural Allen Neiman and Alan Sieroty Lecture in Civil Liberties to a packed audience of USC Law students, faculty, alumni and friends.

Known for voicing a vigorous defense of civil liberties, Stone spoke on “The Framers’ Constitution: Toward a Principled Approach to Constitutional Interpretation” at USC Gould School of Law on February 22, 2012.

“For our inaugural lecture, we couldn’t have done better – Geof Stone has been the country’s leading defender of civil liberties,” said USC Law Dean Robert K. Rasmussen, who was a research assistant to Stone as a law student at University of Chicago.

Endowed by Alan Sieroty ’56, a former California state senator and assemblyman, the Alan Sieroty and Allen Neiman Lecture in Civil Liberties, is named in honor of Sieroty and his classmate, Allen Neiman ’56. The lecture was established this year to bring some of the country’s most respected scholars to the USC Law to address civil liberties issues.

In his talk, Stone discussed the responsibility U.S. Supreme Court justices have in construing the Constitution. He compared how the current, conservative Roberts Court and the liberally minded Warren Court have engaged in judicial activism in their approaches to decisions.

Read more at USC Law Newsroom