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FIRE Co-Founder Alan Charles Kors to Receive Bradley Prize for Defense of Free Speech

FIRE is thrilled to announce that FIRE co-founder and Chairman Emeritus Alan Charles Kors will be a winner of the 2008 Bradley Prize. In the words of Michael W. Grebe, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Bradley Foundation, "The Bradley Foundation selected Alan Charles Kors not only for his original scholarship in European intellectual history, but also for his defense of free speech as well.... In these times, free-thinking students have had no greater champion than Dr. Kors."

We could not agree more. There simply would be no FIRE were it not for Alan's brilliance, vision, hard work, and commitment to the basic principles of liberty. The thousands of students and faculty members FIRE has helped over the years should thank Alan for conceiving a model to fight campus abuses that has allowed our small organization to have a powerful impact.

Alan teaches European intellectual history at the University of Pennsylvania where, in 1993, he defended Eden Jacobowitz in the infamous "water buffalo case." This case led to the writing of The Shadow University (1998) and to the founding of FIRE, both with Harvey Silverglate. Alan possesses a unique clarity of vision when it comes to the importance of defending individual rights in higher education. As he once said, "A nation that does not educate in liberty will not long preserve it and will not even know when it is lost." This quotation brings home the grave threat that illiberal campuses pose to our nation, and it is on the back of every single FIRE t-shirt. You can also see Alan on the FIRE website in our videos FIRE on Campus: An Introduction to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the Voices of Vision episode Make No Law: Protecting Individual Rights on Campus.

Alan will be presented the award during a ceremony to be held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, June 4. Congratulations, Alan! The award is richly deserved.

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