UIS Speakers Series examines "The Constitution and Slavery"

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speakers Series will host a Constitution Day event examining the “social, political, economic and human rights issue” of slavery in today’s world. The featured speaker will be UIS Associate Professor Emerita Kathryn Eisenhart.

WHEN: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 at 7 p.m.

WHERE: UIS Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library

DETAILS: Despite being legally abolished in the Americas in the nineteenth century, Slavery is alive and well in today’s world existing even in Chicago and Springfield. It is a social, political, economic and human rights issue that most people don’t see or recognize.

Eisenhart will focus on the effect of slavery on the birth of our nation and its laws. She will use history as the platform for the drafting of a constitution legally protecting slavery. She argues that we cannot understand ourselves until we acknowledge the effect of slavery on our society in 1778 and in 2014.

Eisenhart joined the faculty of the UIS Department of Legal Studies in 1992. She earned her J.D. from DePaul University College of Law and her B.A. from Northeastern Illinois University, both in Chicago. Through the years she has taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate core courses and electives on topics such as employment law, comparative law and human rights. Her interest in slavery began the year she started preparing her course on human rights.

For a list of other upcoming ECCE Speakers Series events and more information, visit http://illinois.edu/goto/speakerseries. All events are free and open to the public.