Back to Archives

October 16 , 2002
Princeton Professor Robert P. George to Present Clash of Orthodoxies to Christendom

A Political Science Professor at Princeton University, Robert P. George will deliver a lecture entitled "The Clash of the Orthodoxies" with much reference to Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Human Cloning at Christendom College on November 11, 2002, at 6:30 p.m.

In his talk, Professor George will summarize his latest book wherein he discusses the fact that there is a common supposition among many of the cultural elites that a constitutional "wall of separation" between church and state precludes religious believers from bringing their beliefs to bear on public matters. George asserts that this is because secular liberals typically assume that their own positions on morally charged issues of public policy are the fruit of pure reason, while those of their morally conservative opponents reflect an irrational religious faith. In his book, The Clash of Orthodoxies, Robert George shows that this supposition is wrong on both counts.

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. His research and teaching are in the fields of legal and political philosophy, constitutional law, and civil rights and liberties.

A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, he holds a doctorate in philosophy of law from Oxford University. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Swarthmore, and received a Knox Fellowship from Harvard for graduate study in law and philosophy at Oxford.

Professor George is the author of Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (1993) and In Defense of Natural Law (1999), and editor of Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays (1992), The Autonomy of Law: Essays on Legal Positivism (1996), and Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality (1996), all published by Oxford University Press. He is also editor of Great Cases in Constitutional Law (2000) and Constitutional Politics: Essays on Constitution Making, Maintenance, and Change (2001), from Princeton University Press. His most recent book is The Clash of Orthodoxies, published by ISI Books.

His articles and review essays have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Review of Politics, the Review of Metaphysics, and the American Journal of Jurisprudence.

He was recently appointed by President George W. Bush to the President's Council on Bioethics. He served from 1993-98 as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and is a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the 1990 Justice Tom C. Clark Award.

His other awards include the Paul Bator Award of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy, a Silver Gavel Award of the American Bar Association, and listing on the Templeton Foundation Honor Roll of Outstanding Professors

He is general editor of New Forum Books, a Princeton University Press series of interdisciplinary works in law, culture, and politics.

He serves on the boards of directors of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Institute for American Values, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, the National Association of Scholars, and the Ethikon Institute for Comparative Ethics. He serves on editorial boards of the American Journal of Jurisprudence, Academic Questions, and First Things magazine.

Professor George is Of Counsel to the law firm of Robinson & McElwee.

The public is cordially invited to attend the lecture. A reception will follow in the Aula Magna Mariae, located in the lower level of the Chapel. For more information contact Meg McNeely at (800) 877-5456, extension 255.
top of page