Sept. 21, 2006 — Laughlin McDonald, the director of the Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Atlanta, has represented minorities in numerous discrimination cases and argued cases before the United States Supreme Court. He has testified repeatedly before Congress and written for scholarly and popular publications on civil liberties issues.

McDonald, author of the recent book “A Voting Rights Odyssey: Black Enfranchisement in Georgia,” will present the Tenth Annual Rocco C. and Marion S. Siciliano Lecture at the University of Utah-the keynote event of the Siciliano Forum.

The Siciliano Forum, Considerations on the Status of American Society, will be held on Thursday, Oct. 12, at noon, in the Dumke Auditorium of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, located at 410 Campus Center Drive, on the University of Utah campus. The lecture is free and open to the public. An overflow room, with a large-screen audio-visual transmission, will also be open in UMFA’s Great Hall. Parking is available in the visitor parking lot, just east of UMFA.

Steve Ott, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Science, says exploring the topic of voting rights continues to be crucial because there are still important disagreements about the impacts of the Voting Rights Act and how they will affect our democratic form of government over time.

Sponsored by the College of Social and Behavioral Science and the Institute of Public and International Affairs at the University, the Siciliano Forum is an annual event that offers an open forum for students, faculty and the citizenry to focus on the most important current and long-range public issues facing America today. In addition to the annual lecture, the forum sponsors allied presentations and discussions involving faculty and students with other local, regional and national commentators and public officials and educators.

For more information about the forum, please contact Aleta Tew at 801-587-3556 or visit www.csbs.utah.edu.