Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to Deliver 43rd Annual Hanify-Howland Lecture

WORCESTER, Mass. – Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft will deliver the 43rd Hanify-Howland Memorial Lecture on Sept., 16 at 8 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom at the College of the Holy Cross.  The event, titled "Securing Freedom in Perilous Times," is free and open to the public.  As part of his visit to campus, Ashcroft will be teaching two seminars to Holy Cross students.

President George W. Bush announced his decision to nominate John Ashcroft to serve as U.S. attorney general in December 2000. When Ashcroft left office four years later, violent crime was at a record low, gun crime was at an all-time low, a successful corporate crime crackdown had been launched, and more terrorist attacks on the U.S. had been prevented.

One of the most high-profile and experienced attorneys general in the nation’s history, Ashcroft led the U.S. law enforcement community through the challenging and transformational period following the attacks of September 11, 2001. His tenure was highlighted by forceful public advocacy of President Bush’s strong anti-terrorism strategy.

Raised in Springfield, Mo., Ashcroft earned his B.A. at Yale University and received his J.D. from the University of Chicago. Prior to entering public service, Ashcroft taught business law at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield. He authored a book honoring his father, Lessons from a Father to His Son (Thomas Nelson, 1998), and co-authored multiple editions of two college law textbooks with his wife, Janet. He began his career in public service in 1973 as Missouri auditor. He was later elected to two terms as the state’s attorney general. His colleagues in the non-partisan National Association of Attorneys General elected him as their president.

Ashcroft served as governor of Missouri from 1985 - 93 where he balanced eight consecutive budgets. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994, and worked to reduce crime and safeguard the rights of crime victims. He co-sponsored a bill which designated 911 as the universal emergency number and was a leader in passing legislation directly responsible for allowing U.S. companies to utilize more aggressive encryption technology. During his entire career as senator, Ashcroft served on the Commerce Committee where he advocated for updated U.S. banking laws, the protection of consumer privacy, and increased personal responsibility on the part of consumers.

As U.S. attorney general, Ashcroft reorganized the Justice Department to focus on its number one priority: to prevent another terrorist attack. Leveraging every legal tool available to law enforcement, including the critical tools provided in the USA PATRIOT Act, the Justice Department initiated a tough antiterrorism campaign that has assisted in disrupting over 150 terrorist plots worldwide, dismantling terrorist cells in cities across America, and convicting 191 individuals in terrorism-related investigations to date.

Ashcroft currently serves as the chairman of The Ashcroft Group, LLC, which provides confidential strategic consulting and crisis counseling to major international corporations. In 2005, Ashcroft was named a distinguished professor in the schools of law and government at Regent University.

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., board chairman of Warwick Mills, Inc., who died in 1976.

Since 1965, the Hanify-Howland lecture series has brought to the Holy Cross campus a series of distinguished speakers on public affairs who have exemplified in their own work the spirit of public service that the series was established to encourage. They include Linda Chavez, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity; Robert M. Hayes, founder of the National Coalition for the Homeless; Leon R. Kass, former Chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics; Christopher J. Matthews (Holy Cross Class of 1967), MSNBC “Hardball” anchor; the Honorable Clarence Thomas (Class of 1971), associate justice of the Supreme Court; the late Paul E. Tsongas, former senator of Massachusetts; Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve System; and retired Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, USAF, a foreign policy expert.