Release

Linda Greenhouse, Pulitzer Prize-Winning New York Times Supreme Court Journalist, To Speak on "Court, Country and Culture"
Wednesday, March 8, 2006 at 8 p.m. in Page Hall, UAlbany's downtown campus

Contact: Catherine Herman (518) 437-4980

Linda Greenhouse

ALBANY, N.Y. (March 1, 2006) -- Linda Greenhouse, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent who has covered the proceedings of the Supreme Court of the United States for nearly three decades, will lecture on "Court, Country and Culture" at 8 p.m. on March 8, 2006, in Page Hall of the University's downtown campus, 135 Western Avenue, Albany. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Alex Jones, the director of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, calls Greenhouse, "the nation's preeminent authority on the thinking and actions of the U.S. Supreme Court."

Greenhouse, who appears at the University as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, is the author of the new biography, "Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey" (2005), the story of a judge known for his probity, humanity, and keen sense of civic responsibility. The first print reporter granted access to a vast archive of Blackmun's personal and official papers, Greenhouse paints an absorbing portrait of the Nixon appointee who authored the majority decision in Roe v. Wade, and whose views on the death penalty, gender discrimination, and other issues have left a lasting imprint on American law and society.

Legal scholar and University at Albany President Kermit L. Hall, editor-in-chief of The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, said, "Linda Greenhouse is not only the nation's top reporter for the nation's top newspaper about the nation's top court, she is also a sophisticated chronicler of it and its justices' history. Her new study of Harry Blackmun ably demonstrates that what sets Greenhouse apart are her lucid writing about complex legal matters, and her appreciation that the justices shape the work of the Court and are in turned shaped by it. At this critical moment of change on the bench, we are fortunate indeed to have her as this year's Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar."

Writing in the Washington Post "Book World," Akhil Reed Amar said of the Blackmun book that Greenhouse "provides a graceful account, filled with well-chosen quotations, apt observations and elegant legal summaries. Fans of Greenhouse's newspaper reporting… will not be disappointed."

Greenhouse joined the Times in 1968 as assistant to executive editor James Reston. She covered local news from 1969 to 1973, and took on the New York City political beat in 1974. She served as chief of the legislative bureau in Albany, 1976-77, and became U. S. Supreme Court correspondent in 1978.

Greenhouse has appeared as a "Washington Week in Review" panelist on PBS since 1980. She was recently awarded the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from Harvard's Kennedy School, and the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism from the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania. She received a Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 1998.

Greenhouse's lecture, "Court, Country and Culture," is sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute, Phi Beta Kappa, the Alpha Alpha Chapter of New York, UAlbany's Office of the President, the College of Arts & Sciences, the Departments of English, History and Political Science, the Journalism Program, and Rockefeller College.

Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest undergraduate honor society in the nation. Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa now has 270 chapters at select academic institutions nationwide. The University at Albany's chapter was chartered in 1973 and inducted its first new members in 1974.

For additional information, visit the Writers Institute or call (518) 442-5620.

Photo available for download: https://www.albany.edu/main/photos/linda_greenhouse_rgb01.jpg