WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor will moderate a discussion, "Women Advocates of the Supreme Court Bar -- Their Day in Court," on Jan. 28 at the Newseum.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080919/NEWSEUMLOGO )

United States Solicitor General Elena Kagan will participate in the discussion as will Maureen Mahoney (partner, Latham and Watkins) and Wendy W. Williams (professor, Georgetown Law Center).

The public program, co-sponsored by the Supreme Court Fellows Program Alumni Association and the First Amendment Center, will begin at 3 p.m., and be conducted in the Walter and Lenore Annenberg Auditorium, at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington D.C.

The discussion will examine the role that lawyers who are women have played in oral arguments before the United States Supreme Court. The event is the outgrowth of two articles published on the First Amendment Center website in 2008 by First Amendment Center scholars Ronald Collins and David Hudson. Those articles profiled Olive Rabe (1887-1968), the first woman to argue a free speech case, United States v. Schwimmer (1929), in the Supreme Court. Building on that discovery, the discussion will explore the contributions made by other women Supreme Court advocates and how their work helped to shape American law.

Visitors to the Newseum will be able to enter the auditorium directly. Attendees of the program only should use the "C" Street group entrance to the Newseum. Doors will open at 2 p.m. for the program at that entrance.

The First Amendment Center supports the First Amendment and builds understanding of its core freedoms through education, information and entertainment.

The center serves as a forum for the study and exploration of free-expression issues, including freedom of speech, of the press and of religion, and the rights to assemble and to petition the government.

The First Amendment Center, with offices at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and Washington, D.C., is an operating program of the Freedom Forum and is associated with the Newseum and the Diversity Institute. Its affiliation with Vanderbilt University is through the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies. Its offices on the Vanderbilt campus are located in the John Seigenthaler Center.

The center's programs provide education and information to the public and groups including First Amendment scholars and experts, educators, government policy makers, legal experts and students. The center is nonpartisan and does not lobby or litigate.

The Supreme Court Fellows Program offers mid-career professionals a chance to participate in the administration of justice at the national level. Since the program began in 1973, Fellows have worked at the Supreme Court, Federal Judicial Center, Administrative Office of the United States Courts, and United States Sentencing Commission.

(See www.fellows.supremecourtus.gov)

SOURCE First Amendment Center

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