ASU hosts 'a conversation with Nina Totenberg'

Nina Totenberg, award-winning legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio, will be at Arizona State University Feb. 11 to present the 12th annual John P. Frank Memorial Lecture in a conversational format facilitated by Phoenix attorney Michael Grant, the original anchor for “Horizon” on Eight, Arizona PBS.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 7 p.m. in Neeb Hall on ASU's Tempe campus. No tickets are required, though seating is limited to first-come, first-served. The John P. Frank Memorial Lecture series is the signature annual event of Justice and Social Inquiry in ASU’s School of Social Transformation, an academic unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

“For more than 30 years, Nina Totenberg’s legal analysis and reporting have been a respected source for the American public in understanding legal affairs," says Marjorie Zatz, professor and director of justice and social inquiry. "Especially appreciated is her nuanced coverage of the work of the Supreme Court, painting for us a vivid picture of arguments made and questions raised in the high court, where television cameras are still off limits.”   

Totenberg is a mainstay of NPR’s newsmagazines “All Things Considered,” “Morning Edition,” and “Weekend Edition,” and a regular panelist on the public affairs television show “Inside Washington.”  She is also a frequent contributor to major newspapers and periodicals, with articles published in the New York Times magazine, Harvard Law Review, Christian Science Monitor, Parade mgazine, New York magazine and others.

Totenberg joined NPR in 1975 after serving as legal affairs correspondent for the National Observer, and Washington editor of New Times Magazine.

In 1991, her ground-breaking reporting about law professor Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment by Judge Clarence Thomas caused the Senate Judiciary Committee to re-open the Thomas Supreme Court hearings. NPR received the George Foster Peabody Award for its gavel-to-gavel coverage — anchored by Totenberg — of the hearings and subsequent reporting.

Her coverage of the Supreme Court and legal affairs has earned Totenberg many industry honors. In 1998 she was the first radio journalist to be named Broadcaster of the Year and awarded the Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcasting by the National Press Foundation. Honored with seven Silver Gavel awards from the American Bar Association for excellence in legal reporting, she received the American Judicature Society’s first award honoring a career body of work in journalism and the law.

The John P. Frank Memorial Lecture series, endowed with support from the Phoenix law firm Lewis and Roca and Frank’s many friends and admirers, honors the memory of Frank, a Maricopa County attorney who began his career at Lewis and Roca in 1954. A legal scholar, historian, author and advocate for social justice, he is best known for representing Ernesto Miranda before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1966. Frank died in 2002.

“John Frank’s opinion was highly sought and regarded by presidents and Supreme Court justices alike,” Zatz says. “He had an incredible legal mind and he knew how to use the law to enact social change. Throughout his life’s work, John was committed to making our nation and our communities better, more just, places for all.”

For an interactive campus map with driving directions to the Tempe campus and Neeb Hall as well as an ASU parking map, visit http://www.asu.edu/map/interactive. For questions about the event, contact Justice and Social Inquiry at 480-965-7682.