Dr. Paul Finkelman of Albany Law School in New York will present this year’s Constitution Day lecture, “Was Dred Scott Correctly Decided?” on Thursday, Sept. 27, at 6:30 p.m. in Blount Auditorium. The lecture will explain the complicated case of Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) and raise the difficult question of its legitimacy under the U.S. Constitution.

The lecture is free and open to the public. A brief reception will follow in the Buckman Lobby.

A specialist in American legal history and the nation’s leading expert on the Constitution and slavery, Finkelman is the President William McKinley Professor of Law and Public Policy at the Albany Law School. He has written or edited 20 books, as well as more than 100 scholarly articles. His most notable works include The Encyclopedia of African American History: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass, Vol. 3 (2006); Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson, 2nd ed. (2001); Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History with Documents (1997); and Slavery in the Courtroom (1985).

In addition to his many scholarly publications, Finkleman has written op-ed pieces in USA Today and the New York Times and served as the chief expert witness in the Alabama Ten Commandments monument case.

Finkelman holds a B.A. degree from Syracuse University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago. He was a Fellow in Law and the Humanities at Harvard Law School.

Finkelman’s visit is sponsored by the Department of History, the Department of Political Science, the African American Studies Program, the American Studies Program, and the Meeman Center for Lifelong Learning.

For more information, contact Professor Tim Huebner of the Department of History at (901) 843-3653.