Ethics in Society Lecture

"Purposeful, Ethical Activism: Navigating Complex Moral Terrain in a Divided Society"

Jim Obergefell draws from his unique experience at the heart of the Supreme Court marriage equality ruling to move and empower audiences to stand by their beliefs—and prove that love always wins.

A self-described accidental activist, Jim found himself in the role of caregiver for his partner of more than 20 years, John, as he neared the end of his life due to ALS. An unexpected series of events led to their decision to marry, eventually taking Jim to the Supreme Court and the landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that resulted in victory for marriage equality.

Jim and co-author, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Debbie Cenziper, captured Jim and John’s story, as well as the stories of others involved in this case, in the book Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality. He is an Executive Producer on the multi-media JustMarried project – consisting of a coffee table book (Rizzoli, 2025), serialized podcast series (2025), and documentary series (in development) – to save and share the stories of couples, activists, and allies who helped make marriage equality a reality legally, legislatively, and culturally over the span of seven decades.

Jim is active with several equality organizations, including as a board member with Family Equality and Equality Sandusky. He co-founded Equality Vines, the world’s first cause-based wine label that supports equality organizations with premium wines.

Now a self-described purposeful activist, Jim is dedicated to the fight for equality not just for the LGBTQ community, but for civil rights for all. In his moving story of love, loss, dedication, and commitment, Jim brings audiences along on his emotional and empowering journey and his continued efforts fighting for human rights.

"To Love or Not to Love: Finding the Eye of our Social Hurricane"

Desmond Meade is a formerly homeless returning citizen who overcame many obstacles to eventually become the President of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, a graduate of Florida International University College of Law, a Ford Global Fellow, and a McArthur Foundation Fellow.

Recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2019, Desmond presently leads efforts to empower and civically re-engage local communities across the state, and to reshape local, state, and national criminal justice policies. His work has resulted in being named Floridian and Central Floridian of the Year 2019.

As President and Executive Director of FRRC, which is recognized for its work on voting and criminal justice reform issues and recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023, Desmond led the FRRC to a historic victory in 2018 with the successful passage of Amendment 4, a grassroots citizen’s initiative which restored voting rights to over 1.4 million Floridians with past felony convictions. Amendment 4 represented the single largest expansion of voting rights in the United States in half a century and brought an end to 150 years of a Jim Crow-era law in Florida.

Most recently, Desmond served as a Commissioner on the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice which was co-chaired by former U.S. Attorney Generals Loretta Lynch and Alberto Gonzalez. He is also a member of the Council on Criminal Justice. A sought-after speaker, Desmond has made numerous appearances on radio and television, and has spoken before national organizations. Desmond has testified before Congressional members and the United Nations where regarding disenfranchisement in Florida. Desmond orchestrated a historic meeting at the White House between returning citizens and the President Obama’s administration. He has appeared on numerous shows such as Al-Jazeera, Democracy NOW, MSNBC with Joy Ann Reid, FOX News with Dana Perino and Tucker Carlson, Samantha Bee, and All in with Chris Hayes. Desmond has been featured in several newspaper and magazine articles and was chosen as a “Game Changer” by Politic 365, as well as being recognized as a “Foot Soldier” on the Melissa Harris-Perry Show on MSNBC.

Desmond is married and has five beautiful children.

"The Sum of Us"

Heather designs and promotes solutions to inequality in America. Over her career in public policy, Heather has crafted legislation, testified before Congress and helped shape presidential campaign platforms. Her book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together spent 10 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was longlisted for the National Book Award and Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. The New York Times called it, “The book that should change how progressives talk about race.” and the Chicago Tribune said, “Required reading to move the country forward…”. It is a Washington Post and TIME Magazine Must-Read Book of 2021. The paperback version will be out in February 2022. The Sum of Us will be adapted into a Spotify podcast by Higher Ground, the production company of Barack and Michelle Obama in June 2022, and into a young adult readers’ version by Random House Children’s in 2023.

Heather is an educator, serving currently as a Visiting Lecturer in Urban Studies at the City University of New York’s School of Labor and Urban Studies. She has also held visiting positions at Yale University’s Brady-Johnson Grand Strategy Program and the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics. She is the recipient of honorary degrees from Muhlenberg College, Niagara University, and CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy.

For nearly two decades, Heather helped build the non-partisan "think and do" tank Demos, serving four years as president. Under McGhee’s leadership, Demos moved their original idea for “debt-free college” into the center of the 2016 presidential debate, argued before the Supreme Court to protect voting rights in January 2018, helped win pro-voter reforms in five states over two years, provided expert testimony to Congressional committees, including a Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 2017, and led the research campaigns behind successful wage increases for low-paid workers on federal contracts, as well as at McDonalds, Walmart and other chain retailers.

As an executive, McGhee transformed Demos on multiple levels. She led a successful strategic planning and rebranding process. She designed a Racial Equity Organizational Transformation which led to an increase in staff racial diversity (from 27 percent people of color to 60 percent in four years), an original racial equity curriculum for staff professional development and a complete overhaul of the organization’s research, litigation and campaign strategies using a racial equity lens. McGhee also nearly doubled the organizational budget in four years. A strong coalition-builder and trusted cross-movement leader, McGhee deepened Demos’ influence through new networks and collaborations inside and outside the Beltway.

An influential voice in the media and a former NBC contributor, McGhee regularly appears on NBC’s Meet the Press and MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Deadline White House and All In. Her 2020 TED talk is entitled “Racism Has a Cost for Everyone”. She has shared her opinions, writing and research in numerous outlets, including the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Politico and National Public Radio. McGhee’s conversation on a C-SPAN program in 2016 with a white man who asked for her help to overcome his racial prejudice went viral, receiving more than 10 million views and sparking wide media coverage that included a New York Times op-ed, a New Yorker piece and a CNN town hall. In spring 2018, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz asked McGhee to advise the company as it designed an anti-bias training for 250,000 employees in the wake of the unjust arrest of two black men in a Philadelphia store. McGhee wrote a report with recommendations for how Starbucks can apply a racial equity lens to their businesses, and how other companies both large and small can benefit from doing the same.

McGhee also played a leadership role in steering the historic Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and was one of the key advocates credited for the adoption of the Volcker Rule.

She holds a B.A. in American Studies from Yale University and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law,. McGhee is the chair of the board of Color Of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization, and also serves on the boards of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Open Society Foundations’ US Programs and Demos.

For more information, please visit www.heathermcghee.com and follow Heather on Twitter: @hmcghee and Instagram and Facebook: @HeatherCMcGhee

"The Lies that Bind" - Kwame Anthony Appiah

Exciting and erudite, Kwame Anthony Appiah challenges us to look beyond the boundaries—real and imagined—that divide us, and to celebrate our common humanity. Named one of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 public intellectuals, one of the Carnegie Corporation’s “Great Immigrants,” and awarded a National Humanities Medal by The White House, Appiah currently teaches at NYU, though he’s previously taught at Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Duke, and the University of Ghana. He considers readers’ ethical quandries in a weekly column as “The Ethicist” for The New York Times Magazine. From 2009 to 2012 he served as President of the PEN American Center, the world’s oldest human rights organization.

Anthony Appiah’s book Cosmopolitanism is a manifesto for a world where identity has become a weapon and where difference has become a cause of pain and suffering. Cosmopolitanism won the Arthur Ross Book Award, the most significant prize given to a book on international affairs. In The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, Appiah lays out how honor propelled moral revolutions in the past—and could do so in the future. Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs) calls it “an indispensible book for both moral philosophers and honorable citizens.” Among his most recent books are As If: Idealization and Ideals, an exploration of the way ideals facilitate human progress; Mistaken Identities, further explores subjects of his popular BBC series; and The Lies That Bind, an incandescent exploration of the nature and history of the identities that define us.

Kwame Anthony Appiah was born in London to a Ghanaian father and a white mother. He was raised in Ghana, and educated in England, at Cambridge University, where he received a Ph.D. in philosophy. As a scholar of African and African-American studies, he established himself as an intellectual with a broad reach. His book In My Father’s House and his collaborations with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.—including The Dictionary of Global Culture and Africana—are major works of African struggles for self-determination. In 2009, he was featured in Astra Taylor’s documentary Examined Life, alongside Martha Nussbaum, Slavoj Zizek, and other leading contemporary philosophers.

A conversation with Ron Stallworth, author of Black Klansman

Ron has been a nationally recognized gang expert for two decades, enjoying a 32-year law enforcement career in Colorado, Arizona and Wyoming. He worked as a uniformed patrolman and undercover investigator in vice, criminal intelligence, organized crime, narcotics and criminal street gangs, and retired in 2005 after 20 years of service with the Utah Department of Public Safety.

He was instrumental in establishing the Salt Lake City Area Gang Project, the first multi-jurisdictional gang suppression and diversion task force in Utah, and was selected to be the state’s first and, to date, only gang intelligence coordinator. Stallworth testified before Congress three times and has authored four books on street gang culture and youth violence in America.

Ron also has made significant contributions to higher education. In the early 1990’s, he served as chair of the Utah Peace Officer Standards & Training Minority Scholarship, and in 2008 became a founding member of the Pastor France A. Davis Scholarship Fund, a higher-education fund for minority students. He also established the Ron and Micki Stallworth Criminal Justice Scholarship in honor of his late wife, Micki, at Columbia College-Salt Lake. It was she who always urged him to go back to college and get his degree.

In 2014, He published “Black Klansman”, a personal memoir of his experience as the first black detective of the Colorado Springs Police Department. During his career, he went undercover and successfully infiltrated the local Ku Klux Klan chapter. The book has been a New York Times best-seller, and was used as the basis for Spike Lee’s award-winning movie BlacKkKlansman (2018) from Ron’s memoir and experiences, capturing the upheaval of the 1970’s while offering an biting commentary on current events.

Ron lives in El Paso, Texas, with his wife Patsy. He has two sons, Brandon and Nicolas. Patsy has three daughters: Adriana, Angelica and Vanessa.

"Ethics in Neuroscience: What Makes Us Human?"

Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran is a distinguished professor in the neuroscience program and psychology department at the University of California-San Diego, as well as an adjunct professor of biology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.

Ramachandran initially trained as a physician, earning his MBBS at Stanley Medical College in Madras, India. He later earned the status of Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London, England. His medical training was followed by a Ph.D. from Trinity College in Cambridge, England, on a Rouse-Ball Scholarship and two honorary doctorates (D.Sc.).

Ramachandran’s early work was on visual perception, but he is best known for his experiments in behavioral neurology, which, despite their apparent simplicity, have strongly influenced the way we think about the brain. He has been called “the Marco Polo of neuroscience” by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and “the modern Paul Broca” by Nobel laureate Eric Kandel. Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA molecular structure, has referred to Ramachandran’s work on human vision as “ingenious.”

In 2005, Ramachandran was awarded the Henry Dale Medal and elected to an honorary life membership by the Royal Institution of London, where he also gave a Friday evening discourse. His other honors and awards include fellowships from All Souls College, in Oxford, England, and from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California (Hilgard Visiting Professor); the Presidential Lecture Award from the American Academy of Neurology, two honorary doctorates; the annual Ramon y Cajal award from the International Neuropsychiatry Society; and the Ariens Kappers Medal from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences.

In 2003 he delivered the annual BBC Reith Lectures and was the first physician/psychologist to give the lectures since they were begun by Bertrand Russell in 1949. He also gave the annual Gifford Lectures in Glasgow, Scotland in 2012. In 1995 he gave the Decade of the Brain lecture at the 25th annual (Silver Jubilee) meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

Most recently the President of India conferred on him the second-highest civilian award and honorific title in India, the Padma Bhushan. In 2011, Time magazine placed him on their list of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was also featured on the Charlie Rose and Fareed Zakaria shows.

"The Ethics of Foreign Policy"

Founding coordinator and campaign ambassador for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL)

Jody Williams is a tireless crusader against war and the lingering effects that armed conflict has wrought around the world. A driving force in building an unprecedented open partnership between governments, international agencies and the ICBL that she helped create, she was rewarded for her efforts in 1997, when a sweeping international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines was negotiated in Oslo, Norway. In December 1997, 122 nations signed the treaty. One week after that historic event, Jody Williams became the 10th woman — and only third American woman — in history to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

She has overseen the growth of the ICBL to more than 1,300 non-governmental organizations in more than 85 countries, while serving as the chief strategist and spokesperson for the campaign. Working in an unprecedented cooperative effort with governments, United Nations (U.N.) bodies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the ICBL achieved its goal of an international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines. Ms. Williams now serves as campaign ambassador for the ICBL, speaking on its behalf all over the world.

She has written and spoken extensively on the problem of landmines and the movement to ban them. She has spoken in various forums, including at the U.N., the European Parliament and the Organization of African Unity. Ms. Williams co-authored a seminal study, based on two years of field research in four mine-affected countries, detailing the socio-economic consequences of landmine contamination. She has written articles for journals produced by the U.N. and the ICRC, among others. Williams is the author of Banning Landmines: Disarmament, Citizen Diplomacy, and Human Security and her memoir, My Name is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl’s Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize.

Prior to beginning the ICBL, Ms. Williams worked for 11 years to build public awareness about U.S. policy toward Central America. From 1986 to 1992, she developed and directed humanitarian relief projects as the deputy director of the Los Angeles-based Medical Aid for El Salvador. In that capacity, she developed a network of hospitals in 20 cities across the U.S. that donated medical care to Salvadoran children wounded in the war in that country. From 1984 to 1986, she was co-coordinator of the Nicaragua-Honduras Education Project, leading fact-finding delegations to the region. Previously, she taught English as a Second Language (ESL) in Mexico, the United Kingdom and Washington, D.C.

Williams has a master's degree in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (Washington, D.C., 1984), a master's degree in Teaching Spanish and ESL from the School for International Training (Brattleboro, Vermont, 1976), and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Vermont (Burlington, Vermont, 1972). She also received an honorary degree from Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, Minnesota) in March 2005.

"The Ethics of Science in the Next 20 Years"

Theoretical Physicist and New York Times Bestselling Author

Dr. Michio Kaku is one of the most widely recognized figures in science in the world today. He is an internationally recognized authority in two areas. The first is Einstein’s unified field theory, which Dr. Kaku is attempting to complete. The other is to predict trends affecting business, commerce, and finance based on the latest research in science.

Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair in Theoretical Physics at the City Univ. of New York. He graduated from Harvard University in 1968 (summa cum laude and 1st in his physics class). He received his Ph.D. in physics from the Univ. of Calif. at Berkeley in 1972, and been a professor at CUNY for almost 30 years. He has taught at Harvard and Princeton as well. His goal is the complete Einstein’s dream of a “theory of everything,” to derive an equation, perhaps no more than one inch long, which will summarize all the physical laws of the universe. He is the co-founder of string theory, a major branch of string theory, which is the leading candidate today for the theory of everything. His Ph.D. level textbooks are required reading at many of the world’s leading physics laboratories.

He is the author of several international best-sellers. He has two New York Times best-sellers, Physics of the Future, and Physics of the Impossible. Other books include Hyperspace and Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century. For Physics of the Future, he interviewed 300 of the world’s top scientists, many of them Nobel Laureates and directors of the largest scientific laboratories, about their vision for the next 20 to 100 years in computers, robotics, biotechnology, space travel, etc. These are the scientists who are inventing the future in their laboratories. The Physics of the Future gives the most authoritative and most authentic understanding of the world of the future. Physics of the Future was also chosen by Amazon as one of the Top 100 Books of 2011.

His book, Parallel Worlds, is about the latest in cosmology, which was a finalist for the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction in the UK, and also a finalist for the Aventist science book award.

His other New York Times best seller, Physics of the Impossible, earned glowing reviews from the Los Angeles Times, New Scientist Magazine, Guardian Newspaper (UK) and many, many more. It was also the number 1 science book in the United States.

Dr. Kaku also does considerable public speaking on international radio and TV. He has appeared on the Larry King Show, Nightline, 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, CNN, CNN-Financial, ABC-TV News, Fox News, BBC-TV, BBC-Radio, PBS’s Nova and Innovation, Tech-TV.

He has also appeared on the David Letterman Show, The Colbert Report, the Conan O’Brian show, HBO’s Bill Maher Show, and has appeared on numerous science specials, including PBS’s Steven Hawking’s Universe, Science Odyssey, and Einstein Revealed, the BBC’s Future Fantastic, Parallel Universes, Copenhagen, Channel 4’s The Big G: the story of gravity, the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel’s Exodus Earth, A and E, the History Channel’s Universe series and biography of Einstein, and many science documentaries.

He was featured in the full-length, 90 minute feature film, Me and Isaac Newton, which was nominated for an Emmy in 2001. He was profiled in Tech-TV’s Big Thinkers series and is a regular commentator on that cable network. He has spoken on over 500 radio stations around the country.

He has also appeared in a number of major science specials. In 2006, he hosted a four part, four part series for BBC-TV and BBC World on the nature of time, called Time. In winter of 2007, he hosted a 3 part, 3 hour Discovery–TV series about the next 50 years, called 2057. He has also hosted a new 3 part, 3 hour documentary, for BBC-TV about the future of science, called Visions of the Future. It aired in the UK in the fall of 2007, and received glowing reviews from the London newspapers, including the Times, Daily Telegraph, and Guardian. It also received some of the highest ratings for BBC4.

In Jan. 2009, he signed a contract with the Science Channel to host a 12 part science series based on his best-seller, Physics of the Impossible. The series aired in Dec. 1, 2009. In the agreement, the Science Channel also asked Dr. Kaku to be the public face of the Science Channel. He also appears regularly of Fox News.

He is currently negotiating with the Science Channel to host a series based on his book, Physics of the Future.

He also hosts his own national weekly radio program which airs in 130 cities in the US and also the KU national satellite band and internet, called Science Fantastic. It is the largest nationally syndicated science radio show on commercial radio in the United States, and perhaps the world.

He has also written for TIME magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Discover Magazine, New Scientist magazine, Astronomy magazine, Wired magazine, and been quoted in Scientific American, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the London Daily Telegraph, the London Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Wired Magazine, and Fast Magazine. He has written cover articles for New Scientist magazine, Astronomy magazine, and the Sunday London Times. He has written several op-ed pieces for the Wall Street Journal, as well as the Boston Globe.

He frequently keynotes major business conferences about the next 20 years in computers, finance, banking, and commerce. In particular, he has keynoted major conferences for major corporations, many of them controlling hundreds of billions of dollars in investments, including Microsoft, SONY, Walt Disney and many, many more.

"Ethics and Science"

Explorer, Environmentalist, Educator, Film Producer

Explorer. Environmentalist. Educator. Film Producer. For more than four decades, Jean-Michel Cousteau has dedicated himself and his vast experience to communicate to people of all nations and generations his love and concern for our water planet.

Since first being “thrown overboard” by his father at the age of seven with newly invented SCUBA gear on his back, Cousteau has been exploring the ocean realm. The son of ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, Cousteau has investigated the world’s oceans aboard Calypso and Alcyone for much of his life. Honoring his heritage, Cousteau founded Ocean Futures Society in 1999 to carry on this pioneering work.

Ocean Futures Society, a non-profit marine conservation and education organization, serves as a “Voice for the Ocean” by communicating in all media the critical bond between people and the sea and the importance of wise environmental policy. As Ocean Future’s spokesman, Cousteau serves as an impassioned diplomat for the environment, reaching out to the public through a variety of media.

He has produced over 80 films, received the Emmy, the Peabody Award, the Sept d’Or, and the Cable Ace Award. In 1989, he became a syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times where his articles appeared in over sixty newspapers worldwide. Reaching millions of people globally through Ocean Futures Society, Cousteau continues to produce environmentally oriented adventure programs and television specials, public service announcements, multi-media programs for schools, web-based marine content, books, articles for magazines, newspaper columns, and public lectures.

In 2006, Cousteau’s initiative to protect the Northwest Hawaiian Islands took him to The White House where he screened his PBS-KQED documentary, Voyage to Kure, for President George W. Bush. The president was inspired and in June 2006, he declared the 1,200-mile chain of islands a Marine National Monument—at the time the largest marine protected areas in the world.

As chairman of the board and president of Ocean Futures Society, Cousteau travels the world, meeting with leaders and policymakers at the grassroots level and at the highest echelons of government and business. He is dedicated to educating young people, documenting stories of change and hope, and lending his reputation and support to energize alliances for positive change.

Jean-Michel Cousteau has both created and been recognized for many “firsts” in a variety of endeavors. In February 2002, he became the first person to represent the Environment in the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, joining luminaries including Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Africa), John Glenn (The Americas), Kazuyoshi Funaki (Asia), Lech Walesa (Europe), Cathy Freeman (Oceania), Jean-Claude Killy (Sport), and Steven Spielberg (Culture). Cousteau was also appointed to the Board of Directors of the Athens Environmental Foundation for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, mandated to design and support projects that will improve the environment in Greece and beyond.

In the first attempt ever to return a captive orca to the wild, in 1999 Cousteau merged three non-profit organizations to form Ocean Futures Society to continue research and care for Keiko, the captive killer whale of Free Willy film fame. In working with Keiko, Cousteau and his team pioneered both husbandry techniques and scientific research on wild orcas. In 2002, Keiko was returned to the wild and entrusted to the Humane Society for continued long-term care and monitoring.

In another “first,” on Earth Day 1997 Cousteau led the first undersea live, interactive, video chat on Microsoft Internet, from the coral reefs of Fiji, celebrating the International Year of the Reef and answering questions from “armchair divers” throughout the world. In 1998, Cousteau participated in a live downlink from the Space Shuttle Columbia to CNN to highlight the International Year of the Ocean, discussing NASA’s contribution to ocean awareness with astronaut and marine biologist, Rick Linnehan.

Cousteau has been honored with the Environmental Hero Award, presented to him by then-Vice President Gore at the White House National Oceans Conference in 1998.

Cousteau also has a long history of innovative design in the field of architecture and the ocean. Acting on a childhood dream to build cities under the sea, he pursued a degree in architecture from the Paris School of Architecture and remains a member of the Ordre National des Architectes. Artificial floating islands, schools, and an advanced marine studies center in Marseilles, France, are among his projects. In 1969, he led the transformation of a 100,000 square foot section of the Queen Mary into the Living Sea Museum in Long Beach, California. He also directed the design and development of the Parc Oceanique Cousteau in Paris, an innovative public attraction to teach visitors about the ocean without displaying any captive animals.

More recently, Cousteau has been involved with the Jean-Michel Cousteau Fiji Islands Resort, an environmentally and culturally oriented family resort, conceived as a model to prove to the business community the economic benefits of environmental concern and design. In order to expand the impact of ecological tourism, he created L’Aventure Jean-Michel Cousteau, a flagship dive operation at the resort in Fiji. He is currently forming an action partnership to expand this ecologically responsible model to other sites.

In recognition of his many and diverse contributions to learning, Pepperdine University awarded Cousteau an Honorary Doctor’s Degree in Humane Letters in 1976. He has received DEMA’s 1994 Reaching Out Award and the 1995 NOGI Award from the Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences. In 1996, Cousteau was awarded the SeaKeepers Award from Showboats International, and the John M. Olguin Marine Environment Award from the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium. In 2003, he was inducted into the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame and became a Trustee of the British Virgin Islands National Parks as well as being the first recipient of the Ocean Hero Award from Oceana. He has also received the Poseidon/Lifetime Achievement Award from Reef Check and been elected to the Global Green Board of Directors. In 2008, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Jules Verne Adventures and the National Marine Sanctuaries Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.

"The Supreme Court and Its Impact on You"

Award-winning Legal Affairs Correspondent

Nina Totenberg is National Public Radio's award-winning legal affairs correspondent. Her reports air regularly on NPR's critically acclaimed newsmagazines, All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition.

Totenberg has primarily covered the Supreme Court for nearly 40 years. Most recently, she covered rulings on voting rights, affirmative action and same-sex marriage.

In 1991, her groundbreaking report about University of Oklahoma Law Professor Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment by Judge Clarence Thomas led the Senate Judiciary Committee to re-open Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings to consider Hill's charges. NPR received the prestigious Peabody Award for its coverage, which was anchored by Totenberg. The coverage earned Totenberg additional awards, among them: the Long Island University George Polk Award for excellence in journalism; the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting; and the Joan S. Barone Award for excellence in Washington-based national affairs/public policy reporting.

In 1988, Totenberg won the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for her coverage of Supreme Court nominations. The jurors of the award stated, "Ms. Totenberg broke the story of Judge (Douglas) Ginsburg's use of marijuana, raising issues of changing social values and credibility with careful perspective under deadline pressure."

Totenberg has won every major journalism award in broadcasting, and is the only radio journalist to have won the National Press Foundation award for Broadcaster of the Year.

"Making Human Rights the Compass for All Ethical Globalization"

Former President of Ireland and President of the Mary Robinson Foundation

Mary Robinson, the first woman president of Ireland, has spent most of her life as a human rights advocate. The former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and founder and former president of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Global Initiative, Robinson also has expanded her international leadership into business enterprise, corporate citizenship and the reform of some of the world’s most prestigious organizations.

Educated at the University of Dublin (Trinity College), the Honorable Society of King’s Inns in Dublin and Harvard Law School, she holds honorary doctorates from more than 40 universities around the world, including Yale, Brown, Columbia, Oxford and Cambridge.

In 2009, President Barack Obama awarded Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, in recognition of her significant contributions to the nation and the world. She now chairs the Council of Women World Leaders and is president of the Mary Robinson Foundation—Climate Justice.

Robinson was recently appointed to the UN Global Compact Board, a group of 20 global business, labor and social leaders working to advance universal business principles in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption. Making human rights the compass that charts a course for globalization that is fair, just and benefits all, she retains a high visibility on pressing issues such as global health, the battle against poverty and supporting microfinance in many nations.

"Ethical Challenges for Women in Modern Sports"

Award-winning Journalist, Sports Analyst, and Best-Selling Author

Christine Brennan's USA Today column makes her the most widely-read female sports columnist in the nation. She has been recognized for breaking barriers for women in journalism.

The first fulltime woman sports writer at The Miami Herald, Brennan later became the first female to cover the Washington Redskins as a staff writer at The Washington Post. She has covered 13 consecutive Olympic Games beginning in 1984 and broke news of the pairs figure skating judging and scoring scandal at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics. A commentator for NPR's Morning Edition, Brennan also serves as an Olympic reporter for ABC News and EPSN.

In 2002, her USA Today column triggered heated dialogue on the Augusta National Golf Club's lack of female members.

Among her distinguished accomplishments, Brennan was twice named as one of the nation's top 10 sports columnists of the year by the Associated Press Sports Editors and has won the Women's Sports Foundation's journalism award four times. She was the winner of the U.S. Sports Academy's 2002 media award, named Woman of the Year by Women in Sports and Events in 2005, and was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1995.

The best-seller Inside Edge is recognized by Sports Illustrated as one of the top 100 sports books of all time. Brennan also has authored six other books, including the first father-daughter memoir written by a sports writer, Best Seat in the House: A Father, A Daughter, A Journey Through Sports.

Brennan was inducted into the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism Hall of Achievement, and as the first president of the Association for Women in Sports Media, she initiated a scholarship-internship program.

"The Ethics of Civility"

Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities

Jim Leach is the ninth chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Nominated by President Barack Obama, Leach began his four-year term as NEH chairman in August 2009. Leach previously served 30 years representing southeastern Iowa in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he chaired the Banking and Financial Services Committee, the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and founded and co-chaired the Congressional Humanities Caucus.

After leaving Congress in 2007, Leach joined the faculty at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, where he was the John L. Weinberg Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs until his confirmation as NEH chairman. In September 2007, Leach took a year’s leave of absence from Princeton to serve as interim director of the Institute of Politics and lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Leach graduated from Princeton University, received a Master of Arts in Soviet Politics from the School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University, and did additional graduate studies at the London School of Economics. Leach holds eight honorary degrees and has received numerous awards, including the Sidney R. Yates Award for Distinguished Public Service to the Humanities from the National Humanities Alliance.

Leach resides in Iowa City, Ia., and the Washington, D.C., area with his wife Elisabeth (Deba), son Gallagher, and daughter Jenny.

"The Ethics of Presidents at War"

Award-winning presidential historian

Michael Beschloss is an award-winning presidential historian and the author of nine books, including “Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989” (Simon and Schuster, 2007), “The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941-1945” (Simon and Schuster, 2002), “Taking Charge” (Simon and Schuster, 1997) and “Reaching for Glory” (Simon and Schuster, 2001).

He is a regular commentator on “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” on PBS and is the NBC News Presidential Historian. He received an Emmy in 2005 for his role in the Discovery Channel series “Decisions That Shook the World.”

Beschloss is an alumnus of Williams College, studied leadership at Harvard Business School and has served as an historian at the Smithsonian Institution, a Senior Associate Member at the University of Oxford and a Senior Fellow of the Annenberg Foundation.

He holds three honorary doctorates and is the recipient of the State of Illinois’s Order of Lincoln and the Harry S. Truman Public Service Award. He is a trustee of the White House Historical Association, the Foundation for the National Archives and the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs.

Michael Beschloss lives in Washington, DC with his wife and their two sons.

"Ethics in Hollywood"

Actor, producer, director, Hollywood activist

• Oscar nominee (Stand and Deliver)
• Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner (The Burning Season)
• UNICEF goodwill ambassador
• Executive director, Lives in Hazard Education Project, a national gang-prevention program
• Started Americanos: Latino Life in the United States, a celebration of Latino culture through photography, film, music and the printed word

Known as the “Olivier of the Latino world,” this multi-talented actor, producer, director and community activist was born and raised in East Los Angeles, and spent many years in theatrical roles until his Tony Award-nominated performance in the musical Zoot Suit. In 1988, he received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Jaime Escalante, an eccentric but dedicated math teacher, in Stand and Deliver, which he also produced. In 1996, Olmos was honored with a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination for his work in HBO’s The Burning Season, the story of the Brazilian political activist Chico Mendes. He also won an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of Lt. Castillo on the television series Miami Vice. He can currently be seen in the role of Commander Adama on the SciFi Channel series Battlestar Galactica.

In 1999, Olmos launched a nationwide multimedia project called Americanos: Latino Life in the United States, a celebration of Latino culture through photography, film, music and the printed word. The project was designed to inspire Latino pride and build bridges between the Latino and other communities. Americanos included a five-year traveling photography exhibition organized by the Smithsonian Institution; a music CD featuring Latino artists; an HBO documentary; and a book co-edited by Olmos of essays, photos, and commentary by Hispanic luminaries.

Olmos also participates in humanitarian efforts. He is a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF and a national spokesperson for organizations such as the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. He also is executive director of the Lives in Hazard Education Project, a national gang-prevention program funded by the United States Department of Justice.

"Ethics Surrounding the Future of Medical & Health Care"

Former governor of Arkansas

Huckabee is recognized nationally as a leader in health-care, education and energy issues. He served as governor of Arkansas from 1996-2007 and has held numerous other leadership positions over the course of his political career. He has been chairman of the National Governors Association, the Education Commission of the States and the Southern Governors Association. Huckabee also has served as president of the Council of State Governments and state co-chairman of the Delta Regional Authority.

In 2003, Huckabee was recognized by the Road Runners Club of America as its Southern Region Runner of the Year. In 2005, he was named a Public Official of the Year by Governing magazine and one of the five best governors in America by Time magazine. That same year, he also received the AARP's Impact Award.

Over the past decade, Huckabee has authored five books, including his latest, "From Hope to Higher Ground."

"History as a Measure of Performance"

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian

The two-time winner of the National Book Award and the Francis Parkman Prize, McCullough is the author of numerous books, including “1776,” “John Adams,” “The Johnstown Flood” and “Truman,” and has been an editor, essayist, teacher, lecturer and narrator of documentaries.

McCullough has received the National Book Foundation Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award, the National Humanities Award and the New York Public Library’s Literary Lion Award. He is the past president of the Society of American Historians and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received 38 honorary degrees.

McCullough was born in Pittsburgh. He attended Yale University, where he graduated with honors in English literature.

"Creating Trust: The Media, Ethics and Its Viewers"

TV Journalist and CNN Co-Anchor

Soledad O’Brien co-anchors “American Morning” with Miles O’Brien. Based in New York, O’Brien began anchoring CNN’s flagship morning program when she joined the network in July 2003. Since that time, O’Brien has attracted new viewers to the show, and secured many exclusive interviews.

In December 2004, O’Brien was among a handful of CNN anchors sent to Puhket, Thailand, to cover the disaster and aftermath of the tsunami that took more than 155,000 lives in that region. In the fall of 2003, she was the only broadcast journalist permitted to travel with First Lady Laura Bush on her trip to Moscow.

O’Brien came to CNN from NBC News, where she had anchored the network’s “Weekend Today” since July 1999. During that time, she contributed reports for the weekday “Today Show” and weekend editions of “NBC Nightly News”, and covered such notable stories as John F. Kennedy Jr.’s plane crash and the school shootings in Colorado and Oregon. In 2003, she covered the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and later anchored NBC’s weekend coverage of the war in Iraq. Additionally, in 1998, she traveled to Cuba to cover Pope John Paul II’s historic visit.

Before “Weekend Today”, O’Brien anchored MSNBC’s award-winning technology program “The Site”, and the cable network’s weekend morning show. O’Brien joined NBC News in 1991, and was based in New York as a field producer for the “Nightly News” and “Today”.

Before her time at NBC, she served three years as a local reporter and bureau chief for the NBC affiliate KRON in San Francisco. She began her career as an associate producer and news writer at the then-NBC affiliate, WBZ-TV in Boston.

O’Brien’s work has been honored several times, including a local Emmy for her work as a co-host on Discovery Channel’s “The Know Zone”. She has been named to “People” magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People” in 2001 and “People en Espanol’s” “50 Most Beautiful People” in 2004. O’Brien was also included in “Crain’s Business Reports’” “40 Under 40” and “Essence” magazine’s “40 Under 40,” both in 2004. O’Brien has also been named to “Irish American Magazine’s” “Top 100 Irish Americans” on two occasions.

She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She also writes a bi-monthly column for “USA Weekend” magazine on parenting. O’Brien is a graduate of Harvard University.

2005 Ethics in Society speaker: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

2004 Ethics in Society speaker: Arun Gandhi.

2003 Ethics in Society speaker: John Kasich.