Terrible Stuff Damaging Everybody

Please join us for an engaging conversation on the importance of an independent and impartial media to the proper functioning of a free and democratic society. Lawyer and author Ian Rosenburg will sit down with Prof. Emeritus Donald Downs, a leader in the areas of free speech and academic freedom as the two discuss Rosenberg’s latest book, Terrible Stuff Damaging Everybody and the broader responsibilities media in the United States have to informing the electorate with honest and non-partisan reporting.Welcoming remarks will be delivered by Dean Dan Tokaji, a leading authority in the field of election law, voting rights, free speech, and democratic inclusion.

Pyle Center

AT&T Lounge

4 p.m. Conversation with Ian Rosenberg and Professor Emeritus Don Downs

5 p.m. Q&A

5:30 p.m. Reception

Ian Rosenberg is a media lawyer with over 25 years of experience specializing in First Amendment, libel and intellectual property law. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at Brooklyn College. Previously Rosenberg was an Assistant Chief Counsel advising ABC News, and an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with distinction, and Cornell Law School magna cum laude. Rosenberg is the author of: The Fight for Free Speech: Ten Cases That Define Our First Amendment Freedoms; the nonfiction graphic novel Free Speech Handbook (art by Mike Cavallaro); and Terrible Stuff Damaging Everybody: The True Story of Lies and Libel in Dominion v. Fox.

During his long and distinguished career at UW–Madison, Prof. Donald Downs was the Alexander Meiklejohn Professor of Political Science, Law, and Journalism at UW-Madison, and the Glenn B. and Cleone Orr Hawkins Professor of Political Science. He directed and co-founded the University’s Wisconsin Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy (CSLD) from 2007 to 2015. The Center is dedicated to instilling critical knowledge and understanding of the core principles, institutions, and processes of liberal democracies, and to the advancement of genuine intellectual diversity on campus. Downs is also the former director of the University’s Legal Studies Program and its Center for the Study of Law, Society, and Justice (2004-2007). In 1996 Downs helped found the independent and non-partisan faculty group, the Committee for Academic Freedom and Rights, one of the nation’s leading campus academic freedom and free-speech groups. Professor Emeritus Downs retired from active service at UW–Madison in 2015.

Dean Dan Tokaji is the Fred W. and Vi Miller Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. A leading authority in the field of Election Law, Dean Tokaji’s recent scholarship addresses the challenges facing democracies around the globe, including the free speech issues surrounding digital disinformation, the need for trustworthy electoral institutions, and the role of law schools in strengthening democratic governance. A former civil rights lawyer, he has brought many free speech, racial justice, and voting rights cases over his career.