Hiram Chodosh, fifth president of Claremont McKenna College (CMC), explores freedom and diversity of expression with Dr. Peniel Joseph in the first William C. Powers Jr. Speaker Series lecture of the year.
About Hiram Chodosh
Hiram Chodosh is the fifth president of Claremont McKenna College (CMC), a highly selective liberal arts college with a distinctive leadership mission. A graduate of Wesleyan University and Yale Law School and a renowned scholar with institutional justice reform experience in over a dozen countries, Chodosh was recognized as one of the 25 most influential legal educators in the country in 2013 and received the Gandhi Peace Award in 2011.
Under Chodosh's leadership, CMC has developed full set of powerfully integrated programs: The Student Imperative, The Soll Center for Student Opportunity, The Kravis Opportunity Fund, and many others remove financial and social barriers to the expansion of student opportunities. Nationally recognized for sustained success, CMC has nearly doubled its enrollment of Pell-eligible students and nearly tripled the enrollment of students who are first in their families to attend college, with outstanding post-graduate success and achievement in social mobility. The Open Academy reinforces commitments to freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and effective dialogue, in partnership with The Presidential Initiative on Anti-Racism and the Black Experience in America, the CARE Center, the four-time world champion Model UN team, and other student programs. CMC ranks 1st in the nation in freedom of speech, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and was recognized by the Heterodox Academy with the 2019 institutional excellence award in open inquiry.
About the William C. Powers Jr. Speaker Series
Honoring the memory of former UT President William C. Powers, Jr., this speaker series invites thought leaders to present research in American politics and public policy in reflection of his commitment to diversity and inclusion. The series is sponsored by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, and organized by the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy team and its director, Dr. Peniel Joseph, Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values.
About Strengthening Democracy Through Civil Dialogues at the LBJ School
The Strengthening Democracy event series consists of conversations at the LBJ School featuring thought leaders, scholars and activists from a wide variety of backgrounds who will offer insight, analysis and provocation regarding the challenges and opportunities facing our democracy now and in the future. Our intention is to introduce our community of students, faculty, staff and alumni to a series of speakers who can challenge us to grow in new and unexpected ways. We believe that Strengthening Democracy Through Civil Dialogues preserves freedom for all people to enter the civic arena in ways that cultivate respectful, constructive and thought-provoking dialogue and debate that will inspire our community to better construct policy solutions in today’s age.