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News Release

Last modified: Friday, March 21, 2008

Vernon Jordan to give Neal-Marshall policy lecture at Indiana University

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 21, 2008

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Civil rights leader, lawyer and influential political figure Vernon E. Jordan Jr. will deliver the 2008 Neal-Marshall Lecture in Public Policy on Thursday, March 27, at Indiana University Bloomington.

He will speak at 2:30 p.m. in Whittenberger Auditorium at the Indiana Memorial Union, 900 E. Seventh St. The lecture is sponsored by the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Neal-Marshall Alumni Club.

Jordan has worn many hats in almost a half century in public life. He has been executive director of the United Negro College Fund Inc., president and CEO of the National Urban League Inc., and a friend and adviser to President Bill Clinton. He currently is senior managing director of the New York investment banking firm Lazard Freres & Co., senior counsel with the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, and sits on the boards of American Express Co., Xerox Corp. and Howard University.

"We are excited to have Vernon Jordan as our speaker this year, given his history as a power broker in Washington, as well as with corporate America. And we're interested in hearing his views on the current presidential campaign," said Clarence W. Boone Jr., lecture co-director and director of diversity programs with the IU Alumni Association.

Jordan's lecture, titled "America -- Crossing Boundaries of Possibility," will be followed by a question-and-answer session. It is free and open to the public.

Jordan is a 1957 graduate of DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., and a graduate of the Howard University Law School. He practiced law in Arkansas and Georgia and was Georgia field director of the NAACP and director of the Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council. He has held presidential appointments on several national commissions, and in 1992, chaired the Clinton Presidential Transition Team.

He holds honorary degrees from more than 60 colleges and universities, is a member of the Bars of Arkansas, the District of Columbia, Georgia and the U.S. Supreme Court, and is a member of the American and National Bar Associations and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of Vernon Can Read! A Memoir.

The annual Neal-Marshall Lecture in Public Policy began in 1989 as a partnership of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Neal-Marshall Alumni Club. It honors Indiana University's first male and female African American graduates, Marcellus Neal and Frances Marshall. Previous speakers have included former Gary Mayor Richard G. Hatcher, the late U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, former U.S. Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, talk-show host and IU alumnus Tavis Smiley and former IU trustee Cora Smith Breckenridge.

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