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UNR President Milton Glick Presents Jackson Lecture at The National Judicial College

8/15/2007

As The National Judicial College’s (NJC) second Jackson Lecturer for 2007, University of Nevada, Reno, president, Milton D. Glick, spoke on the importance of “freedom of expression” that the nation enjoys, but also noted that with it comes great responsibility on behalf of judges and the legal community to uphold that right.

“It’s not always easy when freedom of expression and institutional interests clash,” said Dr. Glick, whose speech, entitled “Let Them In, Let Them Speak,” touched on the fine line of upholding the right of free speech. He spoke to an audience of judges, NJC staff and faculty and local residents.

Using examples ripped from today’s headlines, Dr. Glick mentioned how threats to freedom of speech can arise anywhere, such as in college newspapers, governmental entities, religion, the arts, “anywhere where people have an opinion, there is bound to be opposing views,” expressed Dr. Glick.

The NJC’s Jackson Lectures are held in honor of Justice Robert H. Jackson, a 1940s Supreme Court Justice best remembered for his role as chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg War Trials. The NJC presents these lectures several times a year at the end of each two-week General Jurisdiction course for NJC course participants as well as the community. The Jackson Lectures are always free and open to the public.

Dr. Glick became the 15th president of the University of Nevada, Reno, on August 1, 2006, after serving 15 years as second-in-command of Arizona State University, based in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe. Prior to that, he spent three years as provost at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, and was interim president for the final eight months. His first senior administrative position was as dean of the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo., in the mid-1980s. He was responsible for placing a networked computer in the office of every faculty member of the college, a revolutionary idea at the time.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Augustana College in Rock Island in 1959, Dr. Glick went on to earn his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1965. Following a year of postdoctoral studies at Cornell University, he joined the chemistry faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit, where he remained for 17 years. In the initial phase of his academic career, Dr. Glick was a noted researcher in the field of x-ray crystallography. His work was funded for 17 consecutive years by the National Science Foundation and he published 99 research articles during that period.

Dr. Glick has been a technology consultant to colleges and universities and is a senior fellow of the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, which conducts research on the roles and implications of information technology in higher education. He describes himself as both a technophile and “technoskeptic” — optimistic about the possibilities of technology but pessimistic about whether higher education will learn to use technology effectively.
Justice Jackson was born in Spring Creek, Penn., on Feb. 13, 1892. He never went to college, but attended Albany Law School for a year. He obtained most of his legal education under the old apprenticeship system as a law clerk and did not get his law degree until after he was named as a justice to the Supreme Court of the United States, when he was awarded an honorary degree by Albany Law School.

Justice Jackson was invited by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to serve in the New Deal government, first as general counsel to the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and later as solicitor general and attorney general. He took his seat as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States on Oct. 6, 1941, and served until his death in 1954. Justice Jackson is best remembered for his vigorous decision and wisdom.

The decision to honor Justice Jackson with this lecture series was made by his friend and Supreme Court colleague, Justice Tom C. Clark, chairman of the Joint Committee for the Effective Administration of Justice and one of the NJC’s founders, for whom NJC’s auditorium is named.

Milton D. Glick, president of the University of Nevada, Reno spoke at the NJC's Jackson Lecture in July.