UAF event, closure to recognize civil rights

Submitted by Marmian Grimes
Phone: (907) 474-7902
01/12/07

Most offices at the University of Alaska Fairbanks will be closed and no classes will be held on Monday, Jan. 15 in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and University of Alaska Civil Rights Day. Later the same week, UAF will host a free public lecture by civil rights attorney Fred Gray.

Gray’s lecture, "Putting a face on human subject protections: the Tuskegee Syphilis Study,"? will begin at 7 p.m. on Jan. 19 in the Schaible Auditorium at UAF. Gray is slated to share his insights on the events leading to the public exposure of the study, which involved more than 600 African-American men, and the lawsuit that Gray initiated on behalf of those men. The study ran from 1932 to 1972 and its aftermath resulted in the creation of federal regulations detailing protections for human subjects of research.

Gray has been a practicing civil rights attorney for more than five decades. In addition to the Tuskegee case, other notable cases include Browder v. Gayle, which integrated the buses in the City of Montgomery, Ala., and Williams v. Wallace, which ordered the state of Alabama to protect civil rights marchers as they journeyed from Selma to Montgomery.

The lecture is free and open to the public. A reception and book signing will immediately follow the presentation

CONTACT: Earlina Bowden, director, UAF Office of Equal Opportunity, at (907) 474-6600 or via e-mail at fneeb@uaf.edu. Marmian Grimes, UAF public information officer, at (907) 474-7902 or via e-mail at marmian.grimes@uaf.edu.