2021 Fairchild Lecture
David Maraniss
"The McCarthy Era and its Echoes: A Story of Family, Journalism and the Search for Truth."
5 p.m. Wednesday, March 31, 2021
David Maraniss is a New York Times best-selling author, a fellow of the Society of American Historians, and a visiting distinguished professor at Vanderbilt University. He also serves as an associate editor for the Washington Post, where he twice won Pulitzer Prizes.
In 1993, Maraniss received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his coverage of Bill Clinton, and in 2007, he was part of a team that won a Pulitzer for coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting. He was also a Pulitzer finalist three other times, and has won many other major writing awards, including the George Polk Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Prize, the Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and the Frankfurt eBook Award.
Among Maraniss’s bestselling books are biographies of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Roberto Clemente, and Vince Lombardi, and a trilogy about the 1960s—Rome 1960; Once in a Great City (winner of the RFK Book Prize); and They Marched into Sunlight (winner of the J. Anthony Lucas Prize and Pulitzer Finalist in History).
Marannis’s twelfth book, A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father, turns the author’s lens on his own family to examine the politics of the 1950s McCarthy era. It is the powerful personal story of a son’s search to understand his father and what happened to his family during the Red Scare, one of the darkest periods in modern American history.
Marannis lives in Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wisconsin, is his hometown.
Questions about this year's lecture? Contact Emilie Buckman, 608-262-5918.
You can support Judge Fairchild's legacy by making a gift to the Thomas E. Fairchild Lecture fund today.
About Judge Fairchild
Judge Thomas E. Fairchild, a 1937 UW Law School graduate, was Wisconsin Attorney General, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, circuit judge, justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and then later chief judge and ultimately senior circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit until his death on February 12, 2007. For 50 years, Judge Fairchild demonstrated both a scholarly regard for those principles of law that generations have molded into the American definition of justice and equality and a remarkable sensitivity to the ever-changing human conditions that make the search for justice and equality an ongoing one.
About the Fairchild Lecture
The Thomas E. Fairchild Lectureship was established in 1988 at University of Wisconsin Law School as a tribute to Judge Fairchild. Initiated by his former law clerks, the lectureship brings a distinguished member of the legal profession — from the bench, bar or academia — to speak at UW Law School on a topic of importance to the profession. Many distinguished guests have served as Fairchild lecturers, including Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor.
View a complete list of Fairchild lectures
| 1988 | Justice John Paul Stevens, "A Judge's Use of History" |
|---|---|
| 1989 | David S. Ruder, "The Development of Legal Doctrine Through Amicus Participation: The SEC Experience" |
| 1990 | Judge Kenneth W. Starr: ”The Court of Appeals and the Future of the Federal Judiciary" |
| 1991 | Judge Harry T. Edwards, "The Judicial Function and the Elusive Goal of Principled Decision Making" |
| 1993 | Judge Mary Schroeder, "Appellate Justice: Fairness or Formulas" |
| 1994 | Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson, “Refreshing Institutional Memories: Wisconsin and the American Law Institute" |
| 1995 | Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, "The Life of the Law: Principles of Logic and Experience from the United States" |
| 1996 | John P. Frank, "The Shelf Life of Justice Hugo L. Black" |
| 1997 | Sol M. Linowitz, "Moment of Truth for the Legal Profession" |
| 1998 | Judge Lawrence Walsh, "The Future of the Independent Counsel Statute" |
| 1999 | Professor Marc Galanter, "Old and in the Way: The Demographic Transformation of the Legal Profession and Its Implications for the Delivery of Legal Services" |
| 2000 | Stephen B. Bright, "Will the Death Penalty Remain Alive in the Twenty-First Century?" |
| 2001 | Professor Elizabeth Warren, "The Market for Data: The Changing Role of Social Sciences in Shaping the Law" |
| 2002 | Judge Patrick Lucey, Sen. Gaylord Nelson, Ellen Proxmire, and Alexander Shashko, "Revitalization of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in the Mid-20th Century" |
| 2003 | Judge Reena Raggi, "The Role of District Courts" |
| 2004 | Michael Traynor, "Citizenship in a Time of Repression" |
| 2005 | Sen. Russ Feingold, "Upholding an Oath to the Constitution: A Legislator's Responsibilities" |
| 2006 | Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow, "Thomas E. Fairchild: A Judge's Legacy" |
| 2007 | Judge Diane Wood, "Snapshots from the Seventh Circuit: Continuity and Change, 1966 to 2007” |
| 2008 | U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, "Thoughts On How the Legal System Treats Jurors" |
| 2009 | Scott Turow, "It's Only Words: Thoughts of a Lawyer and a Novelist" |
| 2010 | John Skilton, "Abraham Lincoln, A Lawyer for the Ages" |
| 2011 | Judge William K. Sessions III, "Federal Sentencing Policy: A Path For The Future" |
| 2012 | Professor Michael J. Zimmer, "Inequality, Individualized Risk and Insecurity" |
| 2013 | Judge William J. Bauer, "The War on Drugs" |
| 2014 | Collins T. Fitzpatrick, " Protecting the Fourth Amendment So We Do Not Sacrifice Freedom for Security" |
| 2015 | R. Nils Olsen, Jr., "All in the Family: A Legacy of Public Service and Engagement—Edward and Thomas Fairchild” |
| 2016 | William C. Hubbard, "Our Justice System at an Inflection Point" |
| 2017 | Judge Lynn Adelman, "The Erosion of Civil Rights and What to Do About It" |
| 2018 | Judge Robert Katzmann, "Civic Education and the Federal Courts" |
| 2019 | Professor Geoffrey R. Stone, "The Warren Court: A Fifty Year Retrospective" |
| 2021 | David Maraniss, "The McCarthy Era and its Echoes: A Story of Family, Journalism and the Search for Truth" |
Digital Repository
Check out the UW Law School Digital Repository for more about past Fairchild Lectures »
