Political Conservative Linda Chavez to Deliver Hanify-Howland Lecture at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – Linda Chavez, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity in Washington, D.C., will deliver the annual Hanify-Howland Memorial Lecture on Wednesday, Nov. 5 at 8 p.m. in the Hogan Ballroom at Holy Cross. The lecture, titled "Thinking About Race: The Shifting Civil Rights Agenda," is free and open to the public.

Described by The Washington Post as one of "a new generation of intellectuals [seeking] to question the orthodoxies of the civil rights establishment," Chavez, a Hispanic conservative, is well-known for her opposition to affirmative action, bilingual education, and other issues affecting minorities.

The author of Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation; and her autobiography, An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal; Chavez also writes a weekly syndicated column that appears in newspapers all over the country.

Chavez currently serves as a political analyst for FOX News and regularly appears on television journals such as CNN & Co., The McLaughlin Group, Equal Time and The Newshour With Jim Lehrer.

In 2000, Chavez was named a "Living Legend" by the Library of Congress for her contributions to America's cultural and historical legacy.

Chavez is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and was co-chair of the Council's Committee on Diversity from 1998-2000. She also serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, including the Foundation for Teaching Economics and the Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

In 1992, she was elected by the United Nations' Human Rights Committee to serve a four-year term as U.S. Expert to the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.

The annual Hanify-Howland lecture honors the late Edward F. Hanify, a 1904 graduate of Holy Cross and a Massachusetts Superior Court justice for 15 years, who died in 1954. The series was started by Hanify's friend, the late Weston Howland of Milton, Mass., a board chairman of Warwick Mills, Inc., who died in 1976.